The most massive Population III stars
Abstract
Recent data from the JWST suggest that there are realistic prospects for detecting the earliest generation of stars at redshift ~20. These metal-poor, gaseous Population III (Pop III) stars are likely in the mass range $10\!-\!10^3\, {\rm M}_{\odot }$ . We develop a framework for calculating the abundances of Pop III stars as well as the distribution of the most massive Pop III stars based on an application of extreme-value statistics. Our calculations use the star formation rate density from a recent simulation to calibrate the star formation efficiency from which the Pop III stellar abundances are derived. Our extreme-value modelling suggests that the most massive Pop III stars at redshifts 10 < z < 20 are likely to be $\gtrsim 10^3\!-\!10^4\, {\rm M}_\odot$ . Such extreme Pop III stars were sufficiently numerous to be the seeds of supermassive black holes at high redshifts and possibly source detectable gravitational waves. We conclude that the extreme-value formalism provides an effective way to constrain the stellar initial mass function.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- July 2023
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/stad1196
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2302.09763
- Bibcode:
- 2023MNRAS.522.3256C
- Keywords:
-
- stars: formation;
- stars: Population III;
- cosmology: dark ages;
- reionization;
- first stars;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- MNRAS accepted