The Formation of the First Stars in the Universe

Abstract

In this review, I survey our current understanding of how the very first stars in the universe formed, with a focus on three main areas of interest: the formation of the first protogalaxies and the cooling of gas within them, the nature and extent of fragmentation within the cool gas, and the physics -- in particular the interplay between protostellar accretion and protostellar feedback -- that serves to determine the final stellar mass. In each of these areas, I have attempted to show how our thinking has developed over recent years, aided in large part by the increasing ease with which we can now perform detailed numerical simulations of primordial star formation. I have also tried to indicate the areas where our understanding remains incomplete, and to identify some of the most important unsolved problems.

74 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews

References in corpus (2)

• The First Cosmic Structures and their Effects
• Water emission in NGC1333-IRAS4: The physical structure of the envelope

Cited by in corpus (88)

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• A Universal Stellar Initial Mass Function? A Critical Look at Variations
• The First Galaxies
• The formation of the first stars and galaxies
• Formation of the First Stars
• 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
• Uncertainties in H2 and HD Chemistry and Cooling and their Role in Early Structure Formation
• The First Galaxies: Assembly, Cooling and the Onset of Turbulence
• The First Galaxies: Chemical Enrichment, Mixing, and Star Formation
• The First Stars: Mass Growth Under Protostellar Feedback
• CANDELS: The Contribution of the Observed Galaxy Population to Cosmic Reionization
• Limiting Accretion onto Massive Stars by Fragmentation-Induced Starvation
• The First Billion Years project - III: The impact of stellar radiation on the coevolution of Populations II and III
• Small-scale dynamo action during the formation of the first stars and galaxies. I. The ideal MHD limit
• Two populations of metal-free stars in the early Universe
• The cooling of shock-compressed primordial gas
• The First Population II Stars Formed in Externally Enriched Mini-halos
• Effect of Streaming Motion of Baryons Relative to Dark Matter on the Formation of the First Stars
• Rotation Speed of the First Stars
• Measuring the mass of the central black hole in the bulgeless galaxy NGC 4395 from gas dynamical modeling
• The first generation of stars in LCDM cosmology
• The Biermann Battery in Cosmological MHD Simulations of Population III Star Formation
• Occurrence of Metal-free Galaxies in the Early Universe
• The formation of direct collapse black holes under the influence of streaming velocities
• The First Galaxies: Signatures of the Initial Starburst
• Black hole formation in primordial galaxies: chemical and radiative conditions
• Formation sites of Population III star formation: The effects of different levels of rotation and turbulence on the fragmentation behavior of primordial gas
• X-ray absorption evolution in Gamma-Ray Bursts: intergalactic medium or evolutionary signature of their host galaxies?
• Effects of Varying the Three-Body Molecular Hydrogen Formation Rate in Primordial Star Formation
• Magnetorotational Collapse of Population III Stars
• The Near Infrared Background: Interplanetary Dust or Primordial Stars?
• Formation of the first stars and black holes
• The THESAN project: predictions for multi-tracer line intensity mapping in the epoch of reionization
• TOPoS: I. Survey design and analysis of the first sample
• The influence of magnetic fields on the thermodynamics of primordial star formation
• The First Stars
• Public Release of A-SLOTH: Ancient Stars and Local Observables by Tracing Halos
• On the formation of very metal-poor stars: The case of SDSS J1029151+172927
• Gravitational wave backgrounds and the cosmic transition from Population III to Population II stars
• Star Formation at Very Low Metallicity. IV. Fragmentation Does Not Depend on Metallicity for Cold Initial Conditions
• Large-Scale Structure Formation: from the first non-linear objects to massive galaxy clusters
• The role of HD cooling in primordial star formation
• The Premature Formation of High Redshift Galaxies
• Impact of Cosmic Rays on Population III Star Formation
• Trapping of HII regions in Population III star formation
• The Cosmic Timeline Implied by the JWST High-redshift Galaxies
• Formation of HD molecules in merging dark matter haloes
• Lyman-Werner UV Escape Fractions from Primordial Halos
• An Introduction to Galactic Chemical Evolution
• WIMP DM and first stars: suppression of fragmentation in primordial star formation
• The Radio to Infrared Emission of Very High Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts: Probing Early Star Formation through Molecular and Atomic Absorption Lines
• A Lower Bound on the Mass of Compact Objects from Dissipative Dark Matter
• First stars and the extragalactic background light: How recent gamma-ray observations constrain the early universe
• Implications of inhomogeneous metal mixing for stellar archaeology
• The Mutual Interaction Between Population III Stars and Self-Annihilating Dark Matter
• Potential of EBL and cosmology studies with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• A new approach to determine optically thick H2 cooling and its effect on primordial star formation
• Machine learning detects multiplicity of the first stars in stellar archaeology data
• Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe
• Gamma-ray bursts and Population III stars
• The role of the H${}_2$ adiabatic index in the formation of the first stars
• Chemical enrichment of stars due to accretion from ISM during the Galaxy's assembly
• A-SLOTH reveals the nature of the first stars
• On the operation of the chemothermal instability in primordial star-forming clouds
• The effect of diffuse background on the spatially-resolved Schmidt relation in nearby spiral galaxies
• Effect of Population III Multiplicity on Dark Star Formation
• Evolution of the First Supernovae in Protogalaxies: Dynamics of Mixing of Heavy Elements
• The THESAN-ZOOM project: Population III star formation continues until the end of reionization
• The first spectral line surveys searching for signals from the Dark Ages
• The role of 3-body H${}_2$ formation in the fragmentation of primordial gas
• The End of an Era - The Population III to Population II Transition and the Near Infrared Background
• The size of the Universe according to the Poincare dodecahedral space hypothesis
• Reassessing Dust's Role in Forming the CMB
• J1342+0928 Supports the Timeline in the R_h=ct Cosmology
• The formation of the first galaxies and the transition to low-mass star formation
• Formation of the First Galaxies: Theory and Simulations
• Open questions in the study of population III star formation
• Atomic Modeling of Photoionization Fronts in Nitrogen Gas
• The effects of convection criteria on the evolution of population III stars and the detectability of their supernovae
• Simulating the collapse of rotating primordial gas clouds to study the survival possibility of Pop III protostars
• A Pop III generated dust screen at z~16
• Galactic chimney sweeping: the effect of 'gradual' stellar feedback mechanisms on the evolution of dwarf galaxies
• The Anomalous 21-cm Absorption at High Redshifts
• Low-temperature primordial gas in merging halos
• Implications of the cosmic infrared background excess for the cosmic star formation
• First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time
• Formation of Stellar Clusters and the Importance of Thermodynamics for Fragmentation