The interplay between chemical and mechanical feedback from the first generation of stars

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological simulations to explore how early stars' chemical and mechanical feedback influence metal spreading, star formation, and the transition from Population III to Population II stars in the early universe.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the interplay of chemical enrichment and feedback processes during early structure formation, emphasizing gravitational enrichment and feedback effects.

Findings

PopII star formation regions are more clumped than PopIII regions.

Metal-enriched outflows can leave original star-forming regions nearly metal-free.

Polluted material from external sources is incorporated within 10^7 years.

Abstract

We study cosmological simulations of early structure formation, including non-equilibrium molecular chemistry, metal pollution from stellar evolution, transition from population III (popIII) to population II (popII) star formation, regulated by a given critical metallicity, and feedback effects. We investigate the properties of early metal spreading from the different stellar populations and its interplay with primordial molecular gas. We find that, independently of the details about popIII modeling, after the onset of star formation, regions enriched below the critical level are mostly found in isolated environments, while popII star formation regions are much more clumped. Typical star forming haloes show average SN driven outflow rates of up to 10^{-4} Msun/yr in enriched gas, initially leaving the original star formation regions almost devoid of metals. The polluted material, which is gravitationally incorporated in over-dense environments on timescales of 10^7 yr, is mostly coming from external, nearby star forming sites ("gravitational enrichment"). In parallel, the pristine-gas inflow rates are between 10^{-3} - 10^{-1} Msun/yr. However, thermal feedback from SN generates turbulence and destroys molecules within the pristine gas, and only the polluted material, incorporated via gravitational enrichment, can continue to cool by atomic metal fine-structure transitions on time scales short enough to end the initial popIII regime within less than 10^8 yr.