238 research outputs found
Decentralized Energy Production System by Anaerobic Digestion Using Organic Waste and Exhaust Heat
Oral Presentaion
Dust grain growth and the formation of the extremely primitive star SDSS J102915+172927
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
We investigate the origin of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars starting
from the recently discovered 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. 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
Poster Presentatio
Low-mass star formation triggered by early supernova explosions
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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