The first generation of stars in the Λ cold dark matter cosmology

We have performed a large set of high-resolution cosmological simulations using smoothed particle hydrodynamics to study the formation of the first luminous objects in the Lambda cold dark matter cosmology. We follow the collapse of primordial gas clouds in eight early structures and document the scatter in the properties of the first star-forming clouds. Our first objects span formation redshifts from z ~ 10 to ~50 and cover an order of magnitude in halo mass. We find that the physical properties of the central star-forming clouds are very similar in all of the simulated objects despite significant differences in formation redshift and environment. This suggests that the formation path of the first stars is largely independent of the collapse redshift; the physical properties of the clouds have little correlation with spin, mass or assembly history of the host halo. The collapse of protostellar objects at higher redshifts progresses much more rapidly due to the higher densities, which accelerates the formation of molecular hydrogen, enhances initial cooling and shortens the dynamical time-scales. The mass of the star-forming clouds cover a broad range, from a few hundred to a few thousand solar masses, and exhibit various morphologies: some have disc-like structures which are nearly rotational supported; others form flattened spheroids; still others form bars. All of them develop a single protostellar `seed' which does not fragment into multiple objects up to the moment that the central gas becomes optically thick to H₂ cooling lines. At this time, the instantaneous mass accretion rate on to the centre varies significantly from object to object, with disc-like structures having the smallest mass accretion rates. The formation epoch and properties of the star-forming clouds are sensitive to the values of cosmological parameters.