The Evolution of Population III and Extremely Metal-Poor Binary Stars

Abstract

Numerical simulations have now shown that Population III (Pop III) stars can form in binaries and small clusters and that these stars can be in close proximity to each other. If so, they could be subject to binary interactions such as mass exchange that could profoundly alter their evolution, ionizing UV and Lyman-Werner (LW) photon emission and explosion yields, with important consequences for early cosmological reionization and chemical enrichment. Here we investigate the evolution of Pop III and extremely metal-poor binary stars with the MESA code. We find that interactions ranging from stable mass transfer to common envelope evolution can occur in these binaries for a wide range of mass ratios and initial separations. Mass transfer can nearly double UV photon yields in some of these binaries with respect to their individual stars by extending the life of the companion star, which in turn can enhance early cosmological reionization but also suppress the formation of later generations of primordial stars. Binary interactions can also have large effects on the nucleosynthetic yields of the stars by promoting or removing them into or out of mass ranges for specific SN types. We provide fits to total photon yields for the binaries in our study for use in cosmological simulations.

53 pages, 17 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• RIGEL: Simulating dwarf galaxies at solar mass resolution with radiative transfer and feedback from individual massive stars
• Rapidly rotating Population III stellar models as a source of primary nitrogen
• Gravitational waves from mergers of Population III binary black holes: roles played by two evolution channels
• The mass distribution of the first stars can be determined via the 21-cm signal
• Ultraviolet photon production rates of the first stars: Impact on the He II $\lambda$ 1640 Å emission line from primordial star clusters and the 21-cm signal from cosmic dawn
• Type Ia Supernovae from First-generation Stars