Copyright by Athena Ranice Stacy 2011 - The University of Texas at ...
Copyright by Athena Ranice Stacy 2011 - The University of Texas at ...
Copyright by Athena Ranice Stacy 2011 - The University of Texas at ...
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Chapter 6<br />
Popul<strong>at</strong>ion III Star Form<strong>at</strong>ion Under the<br />
Impact <strong>of</strong> Cosmic Rays 1<br />
6.1 Overview<br />
SN explosions are thought to be the site <strong>of</strong> cosmic ray (CR) production<br />
(e.g. Ginzburg and Syrov<strong>at</strong>skii 1969), and the CR background built up from<br />
the first SNe may affect the cooling and collapse <strong>of</strong> primordial gas clouds.<br />
Earlier studies (Shchekinov and Vasiliev 2004; Vasiliev and Shchekinov 2006)<br />
have shown how the presence <strong>of</strong> CRs <strong>at</strong> high redshifts could have lowered the<br />
minimum mass <strong>at</strong> which primordial gas could cool and collapse into virialized<br />
dark m<strong>at</strong>ter (DM) haloes (e.g. Haiman et al. 1996; Tegmark et al. 1997). This<br />
earlier study assumes the existence <strong>of</strong> ultra-heavy X particles th<strong>at</strong> decay into<br />
ultra-high-energy CRs which interact with the cosmic microwave background<br />
(CMB), leading to the production <strong>of</strong> ionizing photons. In this paper, however,<br />
we instead examine CR effects which occur through direct collisional ioniza-<br />
tion <strong>of</strong> neutral hydrogen. <strong>The</strong> free electrons cre<strong>at</strong>ed from the ioniz<strong>at</strong>ion act<br />
as a c<strong>at</strong>alyst for the form<strong>at</strong>ion <strong>of</strong> H2 (McDowell 1961). Because molecular<br />
hydrogen emits photons through its rovibr<strong>at</strong>ional transitions, H2 is able to<br />
cool primordial gas <strong>at</strong> temper<strong>at</strong>ures below the threshold for <strong>at</strong>omic hydrogen<br />
cooling (< ∼ 10 4 K). Furthermore, CR ioniz<strong>at</strong>ion can indirectly lead to higher<br />
1 Large portions <strong>of</strong> this chapter have been previously published as <strong>Stacy</strong> A. & Bromm<br />
V., 2007, MNRAS, 382, 229. Reproduced <strong>by</strong> permission <strong>of</strong> John Wiley and Sons.<br />
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