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

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Pop III IMF. Our predictions <strong>of</strong> the n<strong>at</strong>ure <strong>of</strong> the first galaxies will thus be-<br />

come increasingly detailed, and comparing these predictions with observ<strong>at</strong>ions<br />

provided <strong>by</strong> instruments such as JW ST and the Extremely Large Telescopes<br />

will be an exciting task for the future.<br />

Stellar and dwarf archaeology will also continue to reveal more about<br />

metallicity production in the early universe, placing tighter constraints on<br />

primordial star form<strong>at</strong>ion. With large-scale surveys such as the Sloan Exten-<br />

sion for Galactic Understanding, we will gain more knowledge <strong>of</strong> the chemical<br />

abundance p<strong>at</strong>terns within stars residing in the local universe. Finding a PISN<br />

chemical sign<strong>at</strong>ure within the oldest stars today may eventually provide strong<br />

evidence th<strong>at</strong> some Pop III stars indeed reached very high masses. In the other<br />

extreme, the possibility remains for a truly metal-free star to be discovered in<br />

our own Milky Way or near<strong>by</strong> dwarfs, observ<strong>at</strong>ionally confirming the existence<br />

<strong>of</strong> a low-mass end <strong>of</strong> the Pop III IMF.<br />

Stellar abundance observ<strong>at</strong>ions are also becoming sufficiently detailed<br />

to place constraints on Pop III rot<strong>at</strong>ion. Observ<strong>at</strong>ions presented <strong>by</strong> Chiappini<br />

et al. (<strong>2011</strong>) have recently found chemical sign<strong>at</strong>ures <strong>of</strong> rapidly rot<strong>at</strong>ing mas-<br />

sive stars, which may have been Pop III. Rot<strong>at</strong>ion may furthermore facilit<strong>at</strong>e<br />

Pop III gamma-ray bursts, and could someday be detected <strong>by</strong> the current Swift<br />

s<strong>at</strong>ellite and future instruments such as JANUS and EXIST, providing a more<br />

direct probe into the high-redshift universe.<br />

In short, much work is left to be done on Pop III stars and the early<br />

universe. This work will strive to the ultim<strong>at</strong>e goal <strong>of</strong> understanding how<br />

the universe came to its present st<strong>at</strong>e. Every step in this work will add to an<br />

increasingly clear picture <strong>of</strong> how the Dark Ages ended, how the first structures<br />

formed, and even how our own Galaxy was assembled. It is an exciting time<br />

180

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