The formation of massive population III stars in the presence of turbulence

Abstract

Population III stars forming in the infant universe at z = 30 heralded the end of the cosmic dark ages. They are presumed to be assembled in the so-called minihalos with virial temperatures of a few thousand K where collapse is triggered by molecular hydrogen cooling. A central question concerns their final masses, and whether fragmentation occurs during their formation. While studies employing Lagrangian codes suggest fragmentation via a self-gravitating disk, recent high-resolution simulations indicated that disk formation is suppressed. Here we report the first high-resolution large-eddy simulations performed with the Eulerian grid-based code Enzo following the evolution beyond the formation of the first peak to investigate the accretion of the central massive clump and potential fragmentation. For a total of three halos, we see that a disk forms around the first clump. The central clump reaches ∼10 solar masses after 40 yr, while subsequent accretion is expected at a rate of 10-2 solar masses per year. In one of these halos, additional clumps form as a result of fragmentation which proceeds at larger scales. We note that subgrid-scale (SGS) turbulence yields relevant contributions to the stability of the protostellar disks. Both with and without the SGS model, the disk evolution appears rather stable during the timescale considered here. We conclude that the first protostar may reach masses up to 40-100 M⊙, which are only limited by the effect of radiative feedback. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.