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Register a new userIonizing photon production of Population III stars: effects of rotation, convection, and initial mass function
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The first stars are thought to be one of the dominant sources of hydrogen reionization in the early Universe, with their high luminosities and surface temperatures expected to drive high ionizing photon production rates. In this work, we take our Geneva stellar evolution models of zero-metallicity stars and predict their production rates of photons capable to ionize H, He I and He II, based on a blackbody approximation. We present analytical fits in the range 1.7-500 solar masses. We then explore the impact of stellar initial mass, rotation, and convective overshooting for individual stars. We have found that ionizing photon production rates increase with increasing initial mass. For the rotational velocities considered we see changes of up to 25% to ionizing photons produced. This varies with initial mass and ionizing photon species and reflects changes to surface properties due to rotation. We have also found that higher convective overshooting increases ionizing photon production by approximately 20% for the change in overshooting considered here. For stellar populations, we explore how the production of ionizing photons varies as a function of the initial mass function (IMF) slope, and minimum and maximum initial masses. For a fixed population mass we have found changes of the order of 20-30% through varying the nature of the IMF. This work presents ionizing photon production predictions for the most up to date Geneva stellar evolution models of Population III stars, and provides insight into how key evolutionary parameters impact the contribution of the first stars to reionization.
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Extremely metal-poor stars are uniquely informative on the nature of massive Population III stars. Modulo a few elements that vary with stellar evolution, the present-day photospheric abundances observed in extremely metal-poor stars are representative of their natal gas cloud composition. For this reason, the chemistry of extremely metal-poor stars closely reflects the nucleosynthetic yields of supernovae from massive Population III stars. Here we collate detailed abundances of 53 extremely metal-poor stars from the literature and infer the masses of their Population III progenitors. We fit a simple initial mass function to a subset of 29 of theinferred Population III star masses, and find that the mass distribution is well-represented by a power law IMF with exponent $alpha = 2.35^{+0.29}_{-0.24}$. The inferred maximum progenitor mass for supernovae from massive Population III stars is $M_{rm{max}} = 87^{+13}_{-33}$ M$_odot$, and we find no evidence in our sample for a contribution from stars with masses above $sim$120 M$_odot$. The minimum mass is strongly consistent with the theoretical lower mass limit for Population III supernovae. We conclude that the IMF for massive Population III stars is consistent with the initial mass function of present-day massive stars and there may well have formed stars much below the supernova mass limit that could have survived to the present day.
In the star formation process, the vital impact of environmental factors such as feedback from massive stars and stellar density on the form of the initial mass function (IMF) at low-mass end is yet to be understood. Hence a systematic, highly sensitive observational analysis of a sample of regions under diverse environmental conditions is essential. We analyse the IMF of eight young clusters ($<$5 Myr), namely IC1848-West, IC1848-East, NGC 1893, NGC 2244, NGC 2362, NGC 6611, Stock 8 and Cygnus OB2, which are located at the Galactocentric distance ($R_g$) range $sim$6-12 kpc along with nearby cluster IC348 using deep near-IR photometry and Gaia DR2. These clusters are embedded in massive stellar environments of radiation strength $log(L_{FUV}/L_{odot})$ $sim$2.6 to 6.8, $log(L_{EUV})$ $sim$42.2 to 50.85 photons/s, with stellar density in the range of $sim$170 - 1220 stars/pc$^2$. After structural analysis and field decontamination we obtain an unbiased, uniformly sensitive sample of pre-main-sequence members of the clusters down to brown-dwarf regime. The lognormal fit to the IMF of nine clusters gives the mean characteristic mass ($m_c$) and $sigma$ of 0.32$pm$0.02 $M_odot$ and 0.47$pm$0.02, respectively. We compare the IMF with that of low- and high-mass clusters across the Milky Way. We also check for any systematic variation with respect to the radiation field strength, stellar density as well with $R_g$. We conclude that there is no strong evidence for environmental effect in the underlying form of the IMF of these clusters.
Observations of both galaxies in the distant Universe and local starbursts are showing increasing evidence for very hard ionizing spectra that stellar population synthesis models struggle to reproduce. Here we explore the effects of the assumed stellar initial mass function (IMF) on the ionizing photon output of young populations at wavelengths below key ionization energy thresholds. We use a custom set of binary population and spectral synthesis (BPASS) models to explore the effects of IMF assumptions as a function of metallicity, IMF slope, upper mass limit, IMF power law break mass and sampling. We find that while the flux capable of ionizing hydrogen is only weakly dependent on IMF parameters, the photon flux responsible for the He II and O VI lines is far more sensitive to assumptions. In our current models this flux arises primarily from helium and Wolf-Rayet stars which have partially or fully lost their hydrogen envelopes. The timescales for formation and evolution of both Wolf Rayet stars and helium dwarfs, and hence inferred population age, are affected by choice of model IMF. Even the most extreme IMFs cannot reproduce the He II ionizing flux observed in some high redshift galaxies, suggesting a source other than stellar photospheres. We caution that detailed interpretation of features in an individual galaxy spectrum is inevitably going to be subject to uncertainties in the IMF of its contributing starbursts. We remind the community that the initial mass function is fundamentally a statistical construct, and that stellar population synthesis models are most effective when considering entire galaxy populations rather than individual objects.
Supermassive primordial stars forming in atomically-cooled halos at $z sim15-20$ are currently thought to be the progenitors of the earliest quasars in the Universe. In this picture, the star evolves under accretion rates of $0.1 - 1$ $M_odot$ yr$^{-1}$ until the general relativistic instability triggers its collapse to a black hole at masses of $sim10^5$ $M_odot$. However, the ability of the accretion flow to sustain such high rates depends crucially on the photospheric properties of the accreting star, because its ionising radiation could reduce or even halt accretion. Here we present new models of supermassive Population III protostars accreting at rates $0.001 - 10$ $M_odot$ yr$^{-1}$, computed with the GENEVA stellar evolution code including general relativistic corrections to the internal structure. We use the polytropic stability criterion to estimate the mass at which the collapse occurs, which has been shown to give a lower limit of the actual mass at collapse in recent hydrodynamic simulations. We find that at accretion rates higher than $0.001$ $M_odot$ yr$^{-1}$ the stars evolve as red, cool supergiants with surface temperatures below $10^4$ K towards masses $>10^5$ $M_odot$, and become blue and hot, with surface temperatures above $10^5$ K, only for rates $lesssim0.001$ $M_odot$ yr$^{-1}$. Compared to previous studies, our results extend the range of masses and accretion rates at which the ionising feedback remains weak, reinforcing the case for direct collapse as the origin of the first quasars.
We present the evolutionary models of metal-free stars in the mass range from 0.8 to 1.2 Msun with up-to-date input physics. The evolution is followed to the onset of hydrogen mixing into a convection, driven by the helium flash at red giant or asymptotic giant branch phase. The models of mass M >= 0.9 Msun undergo the central hydrogen flash, triggered by the carbon production due to the 3-alpha reactions. We find that the border of the off-center and central ignition of helium core flash falls between 1.1 and 1.2 Msun; the models of mass M <= 1.1 Msun experience the hydrogen mixing at the tip of red giant branch while the models of M = 1.2 Msun during the helium shell flashes on the asymptotic giant branch. The equation of state for the Coulomb liquid region, where electron conduction and radiation compete, is shown to be important since it affects the thermal state in the helium core and influences the red giant branch evolution. It is also found that the non-resonant term of 3-alpha reactios plays an important role, although it has negligible effect in the evolution of stars of younger populations. We compare our models with the computations by several other sets of authors, to confirm the good agreement except for one study which finds the helium ignition much closer to the center with consequences important for subsequent evolution.
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