Detection of isolated population III stars with the James Webb Space Telescope

Abstract

The first population III stars are predicted to form in minihalos at a redshift of approximately 10-30. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), tentatively scheduled for launch in 2018, will probably be able to detect some of the first galaxies, but whether it will also be able to detect the first stars remains more doubtful. Here, we explore the prospects of detecting an isolated population III star or a small cluster of population III stars down to redshift 2 in either lensed or unlensed fields. Our calculations are based on realistic stellar atmospheres and take into account the potential flux contribution from the surrounding HII region. We find that unlensed population III stars are beyond the reach of JWST, and that even lensed population III stars will be extremely difficult to detect. However, the main problem with the latter approach is not necessarily that the lensed stars are too faint, but that their surface number densities are too low. To detect even one population III star of 60 solar masses when pointing JWST through the galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745, the lensing cluster with the largest Einstein radius detected so far, the cosmic star formation rate of population III stars would need to be approximately an order of magnitude higher than predicted by the most optimistic current models.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, published in MNRAS. The main change in version 2 is the inclusion of lower redshifts, down to 2. There was also one more SFR comparison model (Tornatore 2007) added

References in corpus (55)

• The James Webb Space Telescope
• The First Stars
• On the properties of massive Population III stars and metal-free stellar populations
• Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH): An Overview
• The Formation of Massive Star Systems by Accretion
• Simulations on a Moving Mesh: The Clustered Formation of Population III Protostars
• Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from precision cosmology to fundamental physics
• The Birth of a Galaxy: Primordial Metal Enrichment and Stellar Populations
• Generic Spectrum and Ionization Efficiency of a Heavy Initial Mass Function for the First Stars
• Protostellar Feedback Halts the Growth of the First Stars in the Universe
• Protostar Formation in the Early Universe
• The Formation of Population III Binaries from Cosmological Initial Conditions
• The formation of the first stars and galaxies
• The spectral evolution of the first galaxies. I. James Webb Space Telescope detection limits and color criteria for population III galaxies
• Radiation Hydrodynamical Evolution of Primordial H II Regions
• The first stars: formation of binaries and small multiple systems
• Gravitational fragmentation in turbulent primordial gas and the initial mass function of Population III stars
• The Structure and Evolution of Early Cosmological HII Regions
• Population III stars: hidden or disappeared ?
• The First Galaxies: Chemical Enrichment, Mixing, and Star Formation
• Population III star formation in a Lambda CDM universe, I: The effect of formation redshift and environment on protostellar accretion rate
• The First Stars: Mass Growth Under Protostellar Feedback
• Evolution of supermassive stars as a pathway to black hole formation
• Rapidly Accreting Supergiant Protostars: Embryos of Supermassive Black Holes?
• The Formation Rates of Population III Stars and Chemical Enrichment of Halos during the Reionization Era
• The Delay of Population III Star Formation by Supersonic Streaming Velocities
• Effect of Streaming Motion of Baryons Relative to Dark Matter on the Formation of the First Stars
• The Line Emission from the Circumstellar Gas Around SN 1987A
• Radiative Properties of Pair-instability Supernova Explosions
• Population III.1 and III.2 gamma-Ray Bursts: Constraints on the event rate for future radio and X-ray surveys
• Hydrogen-Poor Circumstellar Shells from Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae with Rapidly Rotating Progenitors
• The impact of primordial supersonic flows on early structure formation, reionization and the lowest-mass dwarf galaxies
• Probing the First Stars with Hydrogen and Helium Recombination Emission
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions I: Pair-Instability Supernovae
• The Source Density and Observability of Pair-Instability Supernovae from the First Stars
• The First Galaxies: Signatures of the Initial Starburst
• Ionization Front Instabilities in Primordial H II Regions
• Star Formation in the First Galaxies I: Collapse Delayed by Lyman-Werner Radiation
• The First Galaxies: Assembly of Disks and Prospects for Direct Detection
• The Largest Gravitational Lens: MACS J0717.5+3745 (z=0.546)
• HeII Recombination Lines From the First Luminous Objects
• Abundances and density structure of the inner circumstellar ring around SN 1987A
• Supermassive Dark Stars: Detectable in JWST
• The observational signature of the first H II regions
• Finding high-redshift dark stars with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Observing Dark Stars with JWST
• Lyman `bump' galaxies - II. A possible signature of massive extremely metal-poor or metal-free stars in z=3.1 Ly-alpha emitters
• Flash ionization of the partially ionized wind of the progenitor of SN 1987A
• Pop. III stars from turbulent fragmentation at redshift ~ 11
• Effects of Star Formation Stochasticity on the Ly-alpha & Lyman Continuum Emission from Dwarf Galaxies during Reionization
• Observational constraints on supermassive dark stars
• Constraining the near-IR background light from Population-III stars using high redshift gamma-ray sources
• The 21cm Signature of Early Relic \HII Regions
• Can the James Webb Space Telescope detect isolated population III stars?
• Cosmic infrared background and Population III: an overview

Cited by in corpus (51)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation
• Challenges for $\Lambda$CDM: An update
• Formation of the First Stars
• Merger rate density of Population III binary black holes below, above, and in the pair-instability mass gap
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions I: Pair-Instability Supernovae
• On the observability of individual Population III stars and their stellar-mass black hole accretion disks through cluster caustic transits
• Astrophysics and cosmology with a decihertz gravitational-wave detector: TianGO
• Fast evolving pair-instability supernova models: evolution, explosion, light curves
• The First Galaxies: Assembly under Radiative Feedback from the First Stars
• The critical dark matter halo mass for Population III star formation: dependence on Lyman-Werner radiation, baryon-dark matter streaming velocity, and redshift
• An extremely metal poor star complex in the reionization era: Approaching Population III stars with JWST
• The Universe at extreme magnification
• Fitting formulae for evolution tracks of massive stars under extreme metal poor environments for population synthesis calculations and star cluster simulations
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions II: Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions. III. Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
• Detectability of the First Cosmic Explosions
• Probing the stellar initial mass function with high-$z$ supernovae
• Formation of the first star clusters and massive star binaries by fragmentation of filamentary primordial gas clouds
• Detectability of High-Redshift Superluminous Supernovae with Upcoming Optical and Near-Infrared Surveys - II. Beyond z=6
• Detection strategies for the first supernovae with JWST
• Characterization of Population III Stars with Stellar Atmosphere and Evolutionary Modeling and Predictions of their Observability with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Illuminating the Primeval Universe with Type IIn Supernovae
• Primordial star clusters at extreme magnification
• The Challenges of Identifying Population III Stars in the Early Universe
• Conditions for detecting lensed Population III galaxies in blind surveys with the James Webb Space Telescope, the Roman Space Telescope and Euclid
• Low-energy Population III supernovae and the origin of extremely metal-poor stars
• Population III Hypernovae
• Boosting Lya and HeII 1640A Line Fluxes from Pop III Galaxies: Stochastic IMF Sampling and Departures from Case-B
• Gamma-ray bursts and Population III stars
• On the probability of the extremely lensed $z$=6.2 Earendel source being a Population~III star
• Detecting strongly lensed supernovae at z ~ 5-7 with LSST
• A hide-and-seek game: Looking for Population III stars during the Epoch of Reionization through the HeII$\lambda$1640 line
• The THESAN-ZOOM project: Population III star formation continues until the end of reionization
• Premature Black Hole Death of Population III Stars by Dark Matter
• Detecting Population III Stars through Tidal Disruption Events in the Era of JWST and Roman
• Classifying binary black holes from Population III stars with the Einstein Telescope: A machine-learning approach
• A search for Population III galaxies in CLASH. I. Singly-imaged candidates at high redshift
• The Luminosity of Population III Star Clusters
• Signatures of Population III supernovae at Cosmic Dawn: the case of GN-z11-flash
• Spectral Signatures of Population III and Envelope-stripped Stars in Galaxies at the Epoch of Reionization
• The effects of convection criteria on the evolution of population III stars and the detectability of their supernovae
• Efficient Photo-heating Algorithms in Time-dependent Photo-ionization Simulations
• Intermediate Mass Black Holes: A brief review
• Simulating the collapse of rotating primordial gas clouds to study the survival possibility of Pop III protostars
• A Multiply-Imaged z $\sim$ 6.3 Lyman Alpha Emitter candidate behind Abell 2261
• Detectability of Population III stellar remnants as X-ray binaries from tidal captures in the local Universe
• Black Hole - Neutron Star and Binary Neutron Star Mergers from Population III and II stars
• Revealing the formation histories of the first stars with the cosmic near-infrared background
• Challenges in modelling the rest-frame ultraviolet/optical spectra of galaxies at the high-redshift frontier
• Detailed Abundance Determination of Metal-Poor Stars with X-Shooter I. Unusual Chemistry in Halo Stars
• Direct N-body simulations of rotating and extremely massive Population III star clusters