Low-Mass Relics of Early Star Formation

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0304254

From: Raffaella Schneider <raffa@arcetri.astro.it>

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 15:44:16 GMT   (27kb)

Authors:
R. Schneider,
A. Ferrara,
R. Salvaterra,
K. Omukai,
V. Bromm

Comments: Offprint of Nature 422 (2003), 869-871 (issue 24 April 2003)

The earliest stars to form in the Universe were the first sources of light,
heat and metals after the Big Bang. The products of their evolution will have
had a profound impact on subsequent generations of stars. Recent studies of
primordial star formation have shown that, in the absence of metals (elements
heavier than helium), the formation of stars with masses 100 times that of the
Sun would have been strongly favoured, and that low-mass stars could not have
formed before a minimum level of metal enrichment had been reached. The value
of this minimum level is very uncertain, but is likely to be between 10^{-6}
and 10^{-4} that of the Sun. Here we show that the recent discovery of the most
iron-poor star known indicates the presence of dust in extremely
low-metallicity gas, and that this dust is crucial for the formation of
lower-mass second-generation stars that could survive until today. The dust
provides a pathway for cooling the gas that leads to fragmentation of the
precursor molecular cloud into smaller clumps, which become the lower-mass
stars.

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