Collisional Quenching at Ultralow Energies: Controlling Efficiency with Internal State Selection

Calculations have been carried out for the vibrational quenching of excited H$_2$ molecules which collide with Li$^+$ ions at ultralow energies. The dynamics has been treated exactly using the well known quantum coupled-channel expansions over different initial vibrational levels. The overall interaction potential has been obtained from the calculations carried out earlier in our group using highly correlated ab initio methods. The results indicate that specific features of the scattering observables, e.g. the appearance of Ramsauer-Townsend minima in elastic channel cross sections and the marked increase of the cooling rates from specific initial states, can be linked to potential properties at vanishing energies (sign and size of scattering lengths) and to the presence of either virtual states or bound states. The suggestion is made that by selecting the initial state preparation of the molecular partners, the ionic interactions would be amenable to controlling quenching efficiency at ultralow energies

Primordial star formation: relative impact of H2 three-body rates and initial conditions

Population III stars are the first stars in the Universe to form at z=20-30 out of a pure hydrogen and helium gas in minihalos of 10^5-10^6 M$_\odot$ . Cooling and fragmentation is thus regulated via molecular hydrogen. At densities above 10^8 cm$^{-3}$, the three-body H2 formation rates are particularly important for making the gas fully molecular. These rates were considered to be uncertain by at least a few orders of magnitude. We explore the impact of new accurate three-body H2 formation rates derived by Forrey (2013) for three different minihalos, and compare to the results obtained with three-body rates employed in previous studies. The calculations are performed with the cosmological hydrodynamics code ENZO (release 2.2) coupled with the chemistry package KROME (including a network for primordial chemistry), which was previously shown to be accurate in high resolution simulations. While the new rates can shift the point where the gas becomes fully molecular, leading to a different thermal evolution, there is no trivial trend in how this occurs. While one might naively expect the results to be inbetween the calculations based on Palla et al. (1983) and Abel et al. (2002), the behavior can be close to the former or the latter depending on the dark matter halo that is explored. We conclude that employing the correct three-body rates is about as equally important as the use of appropriate initial conditions, and that the resulting thermal evolution needs to be calculated for every halo individually.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, A&A, 561, A13 (2014

Ion chemistry in the early universe: revisiting the role of HeH+ with new quantum calculations

The role of HeH+ has been newly assessed with the aid of newly calculated rates which use entirely ab initio methods, thereby allowing us to compute more accurately the relevant abundances within the global chemical network of the early universe. A comparison with the similar role of the ionic molecule LiH+ is also presented. Quantum calculations have been carried out for the gas-phase reaction of HeH+ with H atoms with our new in-house code, based on the negative imaginary potential method. Integral cross sections and reactive rate coefficients obtained under the general conditions of early universe chemistry are presented and discussed. With the new reaction rate, the abundance of HeH+ in the early universe is more than one order of magnitude larger than in previous studies. Our more accurate findings further buttress the possibility to detect cosmological signatures of HeH+.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres

The formation of the primitive star SDSS J102915+172927: effect of the dust mass and the grain-size distribution

Understanding the formation of the extremely metal poor star SDSS-J102915+172927 is of fundamental importance to improve our knowledge on the transition between the first and second generation of stars in the Universe. In this paper, we perform three-dimensional cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of dust-enriched halos during the early stages of the collapse process including a detailed treatment of the dust physics. We employ the astrochemistry package \krome coupled with the hydrodynamical code \textsc{enzo} assuming grain size distributions produced by the explosion of core-collapse supernovae of 20 and 35 M$_\odot$ primordial stars which are suitable to reproduce the chemical pattern of the SDSS-J102915+172927 star. We find that the dust mass yield produced from Population III supernovae explosions is the most important factor which drives the thermal evolution and the dynamical properties of the halos. Hence, for the specific distributions relevant in this context, the composition, the dust optical properties, and the size-range have only minor effects on the results due to similar cooling functions. We also show that the critical dust mass to enable fragmentation provided by semi-analytical models should be revised, as we obtain values one order of magnitude larger. This determines the transition from disk fragmentation to a more filamentary fragmentation mode, and suggests that likely more than one single supernova event or efficient dust growth should be invoked to get such a high dust content.Comment: Accepted on Ap

Formation of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars in the presence of far ultraviolet radiation

Recent discoveries of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars like SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 provide increasing observational insights into the formation conditions of the first second-generation stars in the Universe, reflecting the chemical conditions after the first supernova explosion. Here, we present the first cosmological simulations with a detailed chemical network including primordial species as well as C, C$^+$, O, O$^+$, Si, Si$^+$, and Si$^{2+}$ following the formation of carbon-enhanced metal poor stars. The presence of background UV flux delays the collapse from $z=21$ to $z=15$ and cool the gas down to the CMB temperature for a metallicity of Z/Z$_\odot$=10$^{-3}$. This can potentially lead to the formation of lower mass stars. Overall, we find that the metals have a stronger effect on the collapse than the radiation, yielding a comparable thermal structure for large variations in the radiative background. We further find that radiative backgrounds are not able to delay the collapse for Z/Z$_\odot$=10$^{-2}$ or a carbon abundance as in SMSS J031300.36-670839.3.Comment: submitted to ApJ

Dark-matter halo mergers as a fertile environment for low-mass Population III star formation

While Population III stars are typically thought to be massive, pathways towards lower-mass Pop III stars may exist when the cooling of the gas is particularly enhanced. A possible route is enhanced HD cooling during the merging of dark-matter halos. The mergers can lead to a high ionization degree catalysing the formation of HD molecules and may cool the gas down to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature. In this paper, we investigate the merging of mini-halos with masses of a few 10$^5$ M$_\odot$ and explore the feasibility of this scenario. We have performed three-dimensional cosmological hydrodynamics calculations with the ENZO code, solving the thermal and chemical evolution of the gas by employing the astrochemistry package KROME. Our results show that the HD abundance is increased by two orders of magnitude compared to the no-merging case and the halo cools down to $\sim$60 K triggering fragmentation. Based on Jeans estimates the expected stellar masses are about 10 M$_\odot$. Our findings show that the merging scenario is a potential pathway for the formation of low-mass stars.Comment: Submitted to MNRA