Gravitational Fragmentation of Extremely Metal-poor Circumstellar Discs

Abstract

We study the gravitational fragmentation of circumstellar discs accreting extremely metal-poor ($Z\le 10^{-3}$ Zsun) gas, performing a suite of three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations using the adaptive mesh refinement code Enzo. We systematically follow the long-term evolution for 2000 years after the first protostar's birth, for the cases of $Z=0$, $10^{-5}$, $10^{-4}$, and $10^{-3}$ Zsun. We show that evolution of number of self-gravitating clumps qualitatively changes with $Z$. Vigorous fragmentation induced by dust cooling occurs in the metal-poor cases, temporarily providing about 10 self-gravitating clumps at $Z=10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$ Zsun. However, we also show that the fragmentation is a very sporadic process; after an early episode of the fragmentation, the number of clumps continuously decreases as they merge away in these cases. The vigorous fragmentation tends to occur later with the higher $Z$, reflecting that the dust-induced fragmentation is most efficient at the lower density. At $Z=10^{-3}$ Zsun, as a result, the clump number stays smallest until the disc fragmentation starts in a late stage. We also show that the clump mass distribution also depends on the metallicity. A single or binary clump substantially more massive than the others appear only at $Z=10^{-3}$ Zsun, whereas they are more evenly distributed in mass at the lower metallicities. We suggest that the disc fragmentation should provide the stellar multiple systems, but their properties drastically change with a tiny amount of metals.

20 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Movies of the simulations are available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy0BOLTBcHhaYoWvkp5zZ982amm4QcRaK

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