Related papers: The opacity limit
If a significant fraction of metals is in dust, star-forming cores with metallicity higher than a critical value ~10^{-6}-10^{-5}Z_sun are able to fragment by dust cooling, thereby producing low-mass cores. Despite being above the critical…
We present a model for the evolution of supermassive protostars from their formation at $M_\star \simeq 0.1\,\text{M}_\odot$ until their growth to $M_\star \simeq 10^5\,\text{M}_\odot$. To calculate the initial properties of the object in…
The characteristic mass M_c in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is about constant for most star-forming regions. Numerical simulations consistently show a proportionality between M_c and the thermal Jeans mass M_J at the time of…
We present a new analysis of the minimum mass for star formation, based on opacity-limited fragmentation. Our analysis differs from the standard one, which considers hierarchical fragmentation of a 3-D medium, and yields $M_{_{\rm MIN}}…
It is suggested that the thermal physics of star-forming clouds may play a more important role than has usually been recognized in the origin of the stellar IMF and in determining a characteristic mass scale. The importance of the thermal…
To constrain the nature of the very first stars, we investigate the collapse and fragmentation of primordial, metal-free gas clouds. We explore the physics of primordial star formation by means of three-dimensional simulations of the dark…
The thermal properties of star-forming clouds have an important influence on how they fragment into stars, and it is suggested in this paper that the low-mass stellar IMF, which appears to be almost universal, is determined largely by the…
The temperature of newly forming dust is controlled by the radiation field. As dust forms around stars, stellar transients, quasars or supernovae, the grains must grow through a regime where they are stochastically heated by individual…
Dust grains coagulate into larger aggregates in dense gas. This changes their size distribution and possibly affects the thermal evolution of star-forming clouds. We here investigate dust coagulation in collapsing pre-stellar cores with…
The collapse of marginally Jeans unstable primordial gas clouds in the presence of UV radiation field is discussed. Assuming that the dynamical collapse proceeds approximately in an isothermal self-similar fashion, we investigate the…
As star-forming clouds collapse, the gas within them fragments to ever-smaller masses. Naively one might expect this process to continue down to the smallest mass that is able to radiate away its binding energy on a dynamical timescale, the…
The thermal and chemical evolution of gravitationally collapsing protostellar clouds is investigated, focusing attention on their dependence on metallicity. Calculations are carried out for a range of metallicities spanning the local…
The first bound star-forming systems in the universe are predicted to form at redshifts of about 30 and to have masses of the order of 10^6 M_sun. Although their sizes and masses are similar to those of present star-forming regions, their…
An analysis of negative radiative feedback from resident stars in minihalos is performed. It is found that the most effective mechanism to suppress star formation is provided by infrared photons from resident stars via photo-detachment of…
The theory for the formation of the first population of stars (Pop III) predicts a IMF composed predominantly of high-mass stars, in contrast to the present-day IMF, which tends to yield stars with masses less than 1 M_Solar. The leading…
Understanding the origin of stellar masses is a key problem in astrophysics. In the solar neighborhood, the mass distribution of stars follows a seemingly universal pattern. In the centre of the Milky Way, however, there are indications for…
We present new models for the evolution of stars with mass in the range 1Msun < M < 7.5Msun, followed from the pre-main-sequence through the asymptotic giant branch phase. The metallicity adopted is $Z=3*10^{-4} (which, with an…
We study the minimum mass of dark compact objects formed in dissipative dark-matter halos and show that the simple atomic-dark-matter model consistent with all current observations can create low-mass fragments that can evolve into compact…
Dynamical collapse and fragmentation of low-metallicity cloud cores is studied using three-dimensional hydrodynamical calculations, with particular attention devoted whether the cores fragment in the dust-cooling phase or not. The cores…
Shocks may have been prevalent in the early Universe, associated with virialization and supernova explosions, etc. Here, we study thermal evolution and fragmentation of shock-compressed clouds, by using a one-zone model with detailed…