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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th<strong>at</strong> Pop III stars likely experienced strong rot<strong>at</strong>ional mixing, impacting their<br />
structure and nucleosynthetic yields. A subset <strong>of</strong> them was also likely to result<br />
in hypernova explosions, and possibly GRBs.<br />
In Chapter 5, we evalu<strong>at</strong>ed how the recently discovered supersonic<br />
rel<strong>at</strong>ive velocity between the baryons and dark m<strong>at</strong>ter will affect the ther-<br />
mal and density evolution <strong>of</strong> the first gas clouds <strong>at</strong> z < ∼ 50. We find th<strong>at</strong><br />
the typical streaming velocities will have little effect on the gas evolution.<br />
Once the collapse begins, the subsequent evolution <strong>of</strong> the gas will be nearly<br />
indistinguishable from the case <strong>of</strong> no streaming, and star form<strong>at</strong>ion will still<br />
proceed in the same way, with no change in the characteristic Pop III stellar<br />
masses. Reioniz<strong>at</strong>ion is expected to be domin<strong>at</strong>ed <strong>by</strong> luminous sources th<strong>at</strong><br />
form within DM halos <strong>of</strong> masses > ∼ 10 8 M⊙, for which the effect <strong>of</strong> streaming<br />
should be negligible.<br />
In Chapter 6, we explored the implic<strong>at</strong>ions <strong>of</strong> a possible CR back-<br />
ground gener<strong>at</strong>ed during the first SNe explosions th<strong>at</strong> end the brief lives <strong>of</strong><br />
massive Pop III stars. CRs are expected to propag<strong>at</strong>e away from SNe much<br />
faster than the metals produced <strong>at</strong> the same site. We show th<strong>at</strong> a CR back-<br />
ground could have significantly influenced the cooling and collapse <strong>of</strong> primor-<br />
dial gas clouds in minihalos around redshifts <strong>of</strong> z ∼ 15 − 20, provided the CR<br />
flux was sufficient. <strong>The</strong> presence <strong>of</strong> CRs could indirectly enhance the molecular<br />
cooling in these regions, and we estim<strong>at</strong>e th<strong>at</strong> the resulting lower temper<strong>at</strong>ures<br />
in these minihalos would yield a characteristic stellar mass as low as ∼ 10 M⊙.<br />
Future work will aim to accomod<strong>at</strong>e this developing picture <strong>of</strong> Pop III<br />
star form<strong>at</strong>ion in simul<strong>at</strong>ions <strong>of</strong> first galaxy form<strong>at</strong>ion. <strong>The</strong> metallicity and<br />
radi<strong>at</strong>ion produced <strong>by</strong> the first stars, and thus the environment in which future<br />
gener<strong>at</strong>ions <strong>of</strong> stars formed within the first galaxies, depends crucially on the<br />
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