paper

Legacy of star formation in the pre-reionization universe

arXiv:1804.07372 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stz1529

Abstract

We utilize GIZMO, coupled with newly developed sub-grid models for Population~III (Pop~III) and Population~II (Pop~II), to study the legacy of star formation in the pre-reionization Universe. We find that the Pop~II star formation rate density (SFRD), produced in our simulation ($\sim 10^{-2}\ \Msun{\rm yr^{-1}\, Mpc^{-3}}$ at ), matches the total SFRD inferred from observations within a factor of at . The Pop~III SFRD, however, reaches a plateau at $\sim10^{-3}\ \Msun{\rm yr^{-1}\, Mpc^{-3}}$ by , remaining largely unaffected by the presence of Pop~II feedback. At =7.5, of Pop~III star formation occurs in isolated haloes which have never experienced any Pop~II star formation (i.e. primordial haloes). We predict that Pop~III-only galaxies exist at magnitudes , beyond the limits for direct detection with the {\it James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)}. We assess that our stellar mass function (SMF) and UV luminosity function (UVLF) agree well with the observed low mass/faint-end behavior at and . However, beyond the current limiting magnitudes, we find that both our SMF and UVLF demonstrate a deviation/turnover from the expected power-law slope ( at =10). This could impact observational estimates of the true SFRD by a factor of when integrating to 12 (8) at , depending on integration limits. Our turnover correlates well with the transition from dark matter haloes dominated by molecular cooling to those dominated by atomic cooling, for a mass $M_{\rm halo}\approx 10^{8} \Msun$ at .

Accepted: 20 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables

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