238 research outputs found

    Dust grain growth and the formation of the extremely primitive star SDSS J102915+172927

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    Dust grains in low-metallicity star-forming regions may be responsible for the formation of the first low-mass stars. The minimal conditions to activate dust-induced fragmentation require the gas to be pre-enriched above a critical dust-to-gas mass ratio Dcr=[2.6--6.3]x10^-9 with the spread reflecting the dependence on the grain properties. The recently discovered Galactic halo star SDSS J102915+172927 has a stellar mass of 0.8 Msun and a metallicity of Z=4.5x10^-5 Zsun and represents an optimal candidate for the dust-induced low-mass star formation. Indeed, for the two most plausible Population III supernova progenitors, with 20 Msun and 35 Msun, the critical dust-to-gas mass ratio can be overcome provided that at least 0.4 Msun of dust condenses in the ejecta, allowing for moderate destruction by the reverse shock. Here we show that even if dust formation in the first supernovae is less efficient or strong dust destruction does occur, grain growth during the collapse of the parent gas cloud is sufficiently rapid to activate dust cooling and likely fragmentation into low-mass and long-lived stars. Silicates and magnetite grains can experience significant grain growth in the density range 10^9 /cc < nH<10^12 /cc by accreting gas-phase species (SiO, SiO2, and Fe) until their gas-phase abundance drops to zero, reaching condensation efficiencies =1. The corresponding increase in the dust-to-gas mass ratio allows dust-induced cooling and fragmentation to be activated at 10^12 /cc < nH < 10^14 /cc, before the collapsing cloud becomes optically thick to continuum radiation. We show that for all the initial conditions that apply to the parent cloud of SDSS J102915+172927, dust-driven fragmentation is able to account for the formation of the star.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRA

    The origin of the most iron-poor star

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    We investigate the origin of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars starting from the recently discovered [Fe/H]<7.1\rm [Fe/H]<-7.1 star SMSS J031300 (Keller et al. 2014). We show that the elemental abundances observed on the surface of SMSS J031300 can be well fit by the yields of faint, metal free, supernovae. Using properly calibrated faint supernova explosion models, we study, for the first time, the formation of dust grains in such carbon-rich, iron-poor supernova ejecta. Calculations are performed assuming both unmixed and uniformly mixed ejecta and taking into account the partial destruction by the supernova reverse shock. We find that, due to the paucity of refractory elements beside carbon, amorphous carbon is the only grain species to form, with carbon condensation efficiencies that range between (0.15-0.84), resulting in dust yields in the range (0.025-2.25)M_{\odot}. We follow the collapse and fragmentation of a star forming cloud enriched by the products of these faint supernova explosions and we explore the role played by fine structure line cooling and dust cooling. We show that even if grain growth during the collapse has a minor effect of the dust-to-gas ratio, due to C depletion into CO molecules at an early stage of the collapse, the formation of CEMP low-mass stars, such as SMSS J031300, could be triggered by dust cooling and fragmentation. A comparison between model predictions and observations of a sample of C-normal and C-rich metal-poor stars supports the idea that a single common pathway may be responsible for the formation of the first low-mass stars.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Rephrased sentence in section 5 to avoid text overlap with arXiv:1307.2239 in their model descriptio

    Energy Production from Fish Waste in Large-scale Anaerobic Digestion

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    Poster Presentatio

    Low-mass star formation triggered by early supernova explosions

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    We study the formation of low-mass and extremely metal-poor stars in the early universe. Our study is motivated by the recent discovery of a low-mass (M < 0.8 Msun) and extremely metal-poor (Z <= 4.5 x 10^{-5} Zsun) star in the Galactic halo by Caffau et al. We propose a model that early supernova (SN) explosions trigger the formation of low-mass stars via shell fragmentation. We first perform one-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the evolution of an early SN remnant. We show that the shocked shell undergoes efficient radiative cooling and then becomes gravitationally unstable to fragment and collapse in about ten million years. We then follow the thermal evolution of the collapsing fragments using a one-zone code. Our one-zone calculation treats chemistry and radiative cooling self-consistently in low-metallicity gas. The collapsing gas cloud evolves roughly isothermally, until it cools rapidly by dust continuum emission at the density 10^{13}-10^{14} /cc. The cloud core then becomes thermally and gravitationally unstable and fragments. We argue that early SNe can trigger the formation of low-mass stars in the extremely metal-poor environment as Caffau et al. discovered recently.Comment: [v1] Submitted to ApJ Letters, 11 pages, 3 figures: [v2] matches version published in ApJ (main journal), 8 pages, 6 figures. Parameter regions we investigate (initial ambient gas density surrounding the progenitor star) are widene
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