Cosmic Star Formation, Reionization, and Constraints on Global Chemical Evolution

Abstract

Motivated by the WMAP results indicating an early epoch of reionization, we consider alternative cosmic star formation models which are capable of reionizing the early intergalactic medium. We develop models which include an early burst of massive stars (with several possible mass ranges) combined with standard star formation. We compute the stellar ionizing flux of photons and we track the nucleosynthetic yields for several elements: D, He4, C, N, O, Si, S, Fe, Zn. We compute the subsequent chemical evolution as a function of redshift, both in the intergalactic medium and in the interstellar medium of forming galaxies, starting with the primordial objects which are responsible for the reionization. We apply constraints from the observed abundances in the Lyman alpha forest and in Damped Lyman alpha clouds in conjunction with the ability of the models to produce the required degree of reionization. We also consider possible constraints associated with the observations of the two extremely metal-poor stars HE 0107-5240 and CS22949-037. We confirm that an early top-heavy stellar component is required, as a standard star formation model is unable to reionize the early Universe and reproduce the abundances of the very metal-poor halo stars. A bimodal (or top-heavy) IMF (40 - 100 M_\odot) is our preferred scenario compared to the extreme mass range (\ga 100 M_\odot) often assumed to be responsible for the early stages of reionization. A mode of even more extreme stellar masses in the range (\ge 270 M_\odot) has also been considered. All massive stars in this mode collapse entirely into black holes, and as a consequence, chemical evolution and reionization are de-correlated. [Abstract abbreviated.]

arXiv comment45 pages, 18 eps figures, as accepted in ApJ

References in corpus (78)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• How Massive Single Stars End their Life
• The Nucleosynthetic Signature of Population III
• The Formation of the First Star in the Universe
• The Cosmic Baryon Budget
• The CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY XIII: The luminosity density and star-formation history of the Universe to z ~ 1
• The Formation of the First Stars. I. The Primordial Star Forming Cloud
• Evidence for Reionization at z ~ 6: Detection of a Gunn-Peterson Trough in a z=6.28 Quasar
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) First Year Observations: TE Polarization
• On the properties of massive Population III stars and metal-free stellar populations
• Further evidence for a variable fine-structure constant from Keck/HIRES QSO absorption spectra
• First stars, very massive black holes and metals
• The Evolution of the Global Stellar Mass Density at 0 < z < 3
• The Formation of the First Low-Mass Stars From Gas With Low Carbon and Oxygen Abundances
• Generic Spectrum and Ionization Efficiency of a Heavy Initial Mass Function for the First Stars
• Halo Substructure And The Power Spectrum
• The Deuterium Abundance Towards Q1937-1009
• First-generation black-hole-forming supernovae and the metal abundance pattern of a very iron-poor star
• The cosmological baryon density from the deuterium to hydrogen ratio towards QSO absorption systems: D/H towards Q1243+3047
• Lyman Continuum Emission from Galaxies at z~3.4
• The Rest-Frame UV Luminosity Density of Star-Forming Galaxies at Redshifts z>3.5
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics. II. The distribution of metals as traced by C IV
• Updated Big Bang Nucleosynthesis confronted to WMAP observations and to the Abundance of Light Elements
• The Deuterium Abundance Towards Q1009+2956
• The Deuterium to Hydrogen Abundance Ratio Towards a Fourth QSO: HS0105+1619
• The abundance and clustering of dark haloes in the standard Lambda CDM cosmogony
• The Age-Metallicity Relation of the Universe in Neutral Gas: The First 100 Damped Lya Systems
• The Universe Was Reionized Twice
• Primordial Nucleosynthesis in Light of WMAP
• The VLT-UVES survey for molecular hydrogen in high-redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Photoionization Feedback in Low--Mass Galaxies at High Redshift
• Subaru Deep Survey II. Luminosity Functions and Clustering Properties of Lya Emitters at z=4.86 in the Subaru Deep Field
• The Minimum Universal Metal Density Between Redshifts of 1.5 and 5.5
• Probing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample
• Fossil HII Regions: Self-Limiting Star Formation at High Redshift
• The Reionization History at High Redshifts I: Physical Models and New Constraints from CMB Polarization
• The Distribution of Metallicity in the IGM at z~2.5: OVI and CIV Absorption in the Spectra of 7 QSOs
• Early Reionization by the First Galaxies
• HE0107-5240, A Chemically Ancient Star.I. A Detailed Abundance Analysis
• The Thermal Memory of Reionization History
• Is HE0107-5240 A Primordial Star? -- The Characteristics of Extremely Metal-Poor Carbon-Rich Stars --
• A New Measurement of the Primordial Abundance of Deuterium: Toward Convergence with the Baryon Density from the CMB?
• First Stars II. Elemental abundances in the extremely metal-poor star CS 22949--037: A diagnostic of early massive supernovae
• Evidence for Solar Metallicities in Massive Star-forming Galaxies at z>~2
• Was the Universe Reionized by Massive Population-III Stars?
• Implications of WMAP Observations On the Population III Star Formation Processes
• A Limit from the X-ray Background on the Contribution of Quasars to Reionization
• The Abundances of Nitrogen and Oxygen in Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• Nucleosynthesis, Reionization, and the Mass Function of the First Stars
• The Star Formation Rate Intensity Distribution Function--Implications for the Cosmic Star Formation Rate History of the Universe
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics: III. Silicon
• Reionisation, chemical enrichment and seed black holes from the first stars: is Population III important?
• Early stages of Nitrogen enrichment in galaxies: Clues from measurements in damped Lyman alpha systems
• The Deuterium-to-Hydrogen Ratio in a Low-Metallicity Cloud Falling onto the Milky Way
• Evolving Spectra of Pop III Stars: Consequences for Cosmological Reionization
• The Effects of an Early Galactic Wind on the Evolution of D, \he3 and Z
• The deuterium-to-oxygen ratio in the interstellar medium
• Did Globular Clusters Reionize the Universe?
• A Model for Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars
• Lyman Break Galaxies at z~5: Luminosity Function
• On the oxygen abundance of HE0107-5240
• The Ultraviolet Luminosity Density of the Universe from Photometric Redshifts of Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field
• Did Very Massive Stars Pre-enrich and Reionize the Universe?
• ISAAC/VLT observations of a lensed galaxy at z=10.0
• Cu and Zn in the early Galaxy
• Reionization, SLOAN, and WMAP: is the Picture Consistent?
• Probing the Dark Ages with Metal Absorption Lines
• Is There a Missing Galaxy Problem at High Redshift?
• The Chemical Evolution of Mg Isotopes vs. the Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant
• The Ionizing Efficiency of the First Stars
• The Fine-structure Constant as a Probe of Chemical Evolution and AGB Nucleosynthesis in Damped Lyman-alpha Systems
• A Model of Metallicity Evolution in the Early Universe
• On the Possible Sources of D/H Dispersion at High Redshift
• Oxygen and Magnesium Abundance in the Ultra-Metal-Poor Giants CS22949-037 and CS29498-043: Challenges in Models of Atmospheres
• Cosmic Renaissance: The First Sources of Light
• Early Enrichment of Quasars by First Stars
• Star Formation Histories versus Redshift : Consequences for Overall Metallicity and Deuterium Destruction
• Have we detected one of the sources responsible for an early reionisation of the Universe?

Cited by in corpus (56)

• On the normalisation of the cosmic star formation history
• The Formation of the First Stars II. Radiative Feedback Processes and Implications for the Initial Mass Function
• Chemical Evolution in Hierarchical Models Of Cosmic Structure I: Constraints on the Early Stellar Initial Mass Function
• Two populations of metal-free stars in the early Universe
• The First Supernova Explosions: Energetics, Feedback, and Chemical Enrichment
• The redshift distribution of SWIFT Gamma-Ray Bursts: evidence for evolution
• Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from Cosmological Supernovae
• Metallicity-constrained merger rates of binary black holes and the stochastic gravitational wave background
• The Impact of Star Formation and Gamma-Ray Burst Rates at High Redshift on Cosmic Chemical Evolution and Reionization
• Constraints on the IMF of the first stars
• The Properties of Intergalactic C IV and Si IV Absorption, I: Optimal Analysis of an Extremely High S/N Quasar Sample
• Secondary anisotropies of the CMB
• Monte Carlo Markov Chain Parameter Estimation in Semi-Analytic Models of Galaxy Formation
• Core-Collapse Very Massive Stars: Evolution, Explosion, and Nucleosynthesis of Population III 500 -- 1000 $M_{\odot }$ Stars
• Magnetorotational Collapse of Population III Stars
• Gravitational Waves from the First Stars
• HD molecules at high redshift: A low astration factor of deuterium in a solar-metallicity DLA system at z=2.418
• Cosmic Neutron Star Merger Rate and Gravitational Waves constrained by the R Process Nucleosynthesis
• Lower Metal Enrichment of Virialized Gas in Minihalos
• Hierarchical Growth and Cosmic Star Formation: Enrichment, Outflows and Supernova Rates
• Higher D or Li: Probes of Physics beyond the Standard Model
• Cosmological Cosmic Rays and the observed Li6 plateau in metal poor halo stars
• Primordial Stellar Feedback and the Origin of Hyper Metal-Poor Stars
• Population III Generated Cosmic Rays and the Production of Li6
• Monolithic or hierarchical star formation? A new statistical analysis
• The most metal-poor damped Ly alpha system at z<3: constraints on early nucleosynthesis
• A synthetic model of the gravitational wave background from evolving binary compact objects
• Diffuse Cosmic Neutrino Background from Population III Stars
• The Properties of Intergalactic CIV Absorption II: Which Systems Are Associated With Galaxy Outflows?
• Formation History of Metal-Poor Halo Stars with Hierarchical Model and the Effect of ISM accretion on the Most Metal-Poor Stars
• Influence of Population III stars on cosmic chemical evolution
• Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from Neutron Star r-mode Instability Revisited
• The origin of dispersion in DLA metallicities
• Exploring stellar evolution with gravitational-wave observations
• Cosmological evolution of the Nitrogen abundance
• Neutrino Signatures from the First Stars
• The Radiative Transport of Dust in Primordial Galaxies and Second-Generation Star Formation
• Evolution of dispersion in the cosmic deuterium abundance
• The Cosmic Evolution of Magnesium Isotopes
• FUSE Deuterium Observations: A Strong Case For Galactic Infall
• PopIII signatures in the spectra of PopII/I GRBs
• Chemical constraints on the contribution of Population III stars to cosmic reionization
• Sources for Metals in the Intergalactic Medium
• Pregalactic LiBeB Production by Supernova Cosmic Rays
• Cosmic Chemical Evolution with an Early Population of Intermediate Mass Stars
• C IV absorbers tracing cool gas in dense galaxy group/cluster environments
• Constraining warm dark matter mass with cosmic reionization and gravitational wave
• Memory-triggered supernova neutrino detection
• The impact of turbulent mixing on the galactic r-process enrichment by binary neutron star mergers
• Cosmological Gravitational Wave Background from Phase Transitions in Neutron Stars
• Quark-Novae, cosmic reionization, and early r-process element production
• Astrophysics in 2005
• Gravitational waves from binary black holes as probes of the structure formation history
• Metal Enrichment and Reionization Constraints on Early Star Formation
• Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium and Production of Massive Black Holes
• The Relic Neutrino Backround from the First Stars