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Copyright by Athena Ranice Stacy 2011 - The University of Texas at ...

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It is apparent th<strong>at</strong> the angular momentum <strong>of</strong> Pop III stars plays a<br />

key role in their evolution and de<strong>at</strong>h, as well as their subsequent impact on<br />

the IGM. Whereas the mass scale <strong>of</strong> the first stars has been investig<strong>at</strong>ed in<br />

numerous studies, their spin remains poorly understood. It is an open ques-<br />

tion whether Pop III stars can realistically <strong>at</strong>tain the high spin needed for the<br />

above-mentioned processes to occur. Current observ<strong>at</strong>ions <strong>of</strong> massive O and<br />

B-type stars in our Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud show th<strong>at</strong> they can<br />

indeed be rapid rot<strong>at</strong>ors, spinning <strong>at</strong> a significant percentage <strong>of</strong> break-up speed<br />

(a few tens <strong>of</strong> percent). <strong>The</strong>y have a large range <strong>of</strong> spin, from several tens <strong>of</strong><br />

km s −1 to well over 300 km s −1 , with an average <strong>of</strong> about 100–200 km s −1 (e.g.<br />

Huang and Gies 2008; Wolff et al. 2008). This does not necessarily apply to<br />

Pop III stars, however, which formed in a different environment. While Pop III<br />

stars formed in minihalos whose gravit<strong>at</strong>ional potential wells were domin<strong>at</strong>ed<br />

<strong>by</strong> dark m<strong>at</strong>ter (DM), massive stars today form within molecular clouds th<strong>at</strong><br />

are not DM domin<strong>at</strong>ed, and are embedded in much larger galaxies. <strong>The</strong> angu-<br />

lar momentum in the l<strong>at</strong>ter case ultim<strong>at</strong>ely derives from galactic differential<br />

rot<strong>at</strong>ion on the largest scales, and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM)<br />

on smaller scales (see, e.g. Bodenheimer 1995). Wolff et al. (2008) argue th<strong>at</strong><br />

their measured stellar rot<strong>at</strong>ion r<strong>at</strong>es reflect the initial conditions <strong>of</strong> the cores<br />

in which the stars formed, particularly the core turbulent speeds and resulting<br />

infall r<strong>at</strong>es. To better determine the possible rot<strong>at</strong>ion r<strong>at</strong>es <strong>of</strong> Pop III stars,<br />

it is thus necessary to study the environment specific to where they formed.<br />

To better understand the potential for the various spin-dependent evo-<br />

lutionary p<strong>at</strong>hways <strong>of</strong> Pop III stars, we perform a three-dimensional cosmo-<br />

logical simul<strong>at</strong>ion th<strong>at</strong> follows the evolution <strong>of</strong> primordial gas in a minihalo<br />

to densities <strong>of</strong> n > 10 12 cm −3 . Similar to Bromm and Loeb (2004) and <strong>Stacy</strong><br />

97

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