Related papers: First Stars. I. Evolution without mass loss
Current numerical studies suggest that the first galaxies formed a few stars at a time and were enriched only gradually by the first heavy elements. However, the large box sizes in these models cannot resolve primordial supernova explosions…
The first stars were likely more massive than those forming today and thus rapidly evolved, exploding as supernovae and enriching the surrounding gas with their chemical products. In the Local Group, the chemical signature of the first…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host…
In popular cold dark matter cosmological scenarios, stars may have first appeared in significant numbers around a redshift of 10 or so, as the gas within protogalactic halos with virial temperatures in excess of 20,000 K (corresponding to…
We discuss the results of recent 3D simulations of first structure formation in relationship to the formation of the first stars. On the basis of a new, high-resolution AMR simulation (spatial dynamic range = 30,000,000), we conclude that…
We investigate the ab-initio formation of super-massive stars in a pristine atomic cooling halo. The halo is extracted from a larger self-consistent parent simulation. The halo remains metal-free and star formation is suppressed due to a…
The thermal and fragmentation properties of star-forming clouds have important consequences on the corresponding characteristic stellar mass. The initial composition of the gas within these clouds is a record of the nucleosynthetic products…
We model gas cooling in high-resolution N-body simulations in order to investigate the formation of the first generation of stars. We follow a region of a LCDM universe especially selected to contain a rich cluster by the present day. The…
The intergalactic medium was reionized before redshift z~6, most likely by starlight which escaped from early galaxies. The very first stars formed when hydrogen molecules (H2) cooled gas inside the smallest galaxies, minihalos of mass…
The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…
We perform a three dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulation to investigate the formation of first stars from initial collapse of a primordial gas cloud to formation and growth of protostars. The simulation is integrated until 0.1 Myrs…
Feedback from massive stars plays an important role in the formation of star clusters. Whether a very massive star is born early or late in the cluster formation timeline has profound implications for the star cluster formation and assembly…
The hypothesis that massive stars form by accretion can be investigated by simple analytical calculations that describe the effect that the formation of a massive star has on its own accretion flow. Within a simple accretion model that…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
Understanding the formation of the first stars and galaxies is a key problem in modern cosmology. In these lecture notes, we will derive some of the basic physical principles underlying this emerging field. We will consider the basic…
Over the past decade increasingly robust estimates of the dense molecular gas content in galaxy populations between redshift 0 and the peak of cosmic galaxy/star formation from redshift 1-3 have become available. This rapid progress has…
We have collected from the literature a list of early-type stars, situated at large distances from the galactic plane, for which evidence of youth seems convincing. We discuss two possible formation mechanisms for these stars: ejection from…
We investigate the formation of the first stars at the end of the cosmic dark ages with a suite of three-dimensional, moving mesh simulations that directly resolve the collapse of the gas beyond the formation of the first protostar at the…
Massive stars are "cosmic engines" (cf the title of the IAU Symposium 250). They drive the photometric and chemical evolution of galaxies, inject energy and momentum through stellar winds and supernova explosions, they modify in this way…
We apply the phenomenological model used to explain the abundances of Fe and r-process elements in very metal-poor stars in the Galaxy to [Fe/H] of damped Ly alpha systems. It is assumed that the first stars formed after the Big Bang were…