Impact of the Relative Motion between the Dark Matter and Baryons on the First Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the supersonic relative motion between dark matter and baryons influences early star formation, revealing significant inhomogeneities and a delay in the formation of the first stars.

Contribution

It introduces a new model incorporating recent simulation results to quantify the effects of relative velocities on halo formation and star formation timing at high redshift.

Findings

68% of star formation at z=20 occurs in 35% of the volume

The first star likely formed at z ~ 65, delayed by about 5 units due to relative velocities

Order unity fluctuations in stellar density caused by combined effects

Abstract

Recently the initial supersonic relative velocity between the dark matter and baryons was shown to have an important effect on galaxy formation at high redshift. We study the impact of this relative motion on the distribution of the star-forming halos and on the formation redshift of the very first star. We include a new aspect of the relative velocity effect found in recent simulations by fitting their results to obtain the spatially-varying minimum halo mass needed for molecular cooling. Thus, the relative velocities have three separate effects: suppression of the halo abundance, suppression of the gas content within each halo, and boosting of the minimum cooling mass. We show that the two suppressions (of gas content and of halo abundance) are the primary effects on the small minihalos that cannot form stars, while the cooling mass boost combines with the abundance suppression to produce order unity fluctuations in stellar density. We quantify the large-scale inhomogeneity of galaxies, finding that 68% of the star formation (averaged on a 3 Mpc scale) is confined to 35% of the volume at z=20 (and just 18% at z=40). In addition, we estimate the redshift of the first star to be z ~ 65, which includes a delay of Dz ~ 5 due to the relative velocity.