Formation Criteria and the Mass of Secondary Population Iii Stars

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We explore the formation of secondary Population III (Pop III) stars under radiation hydrodynamic (RHD) feedback by a preformed massive star. To properly treat RHD feedback, we perform three-dimensional RHD simulations incorporating the radiative transfer of ionizing photons as well as H 2 dissociating photons from a preformed star. A collapsing gas cloud is settled at a given distance from a 120 M ☉ Pop III star, and the evolution of the cloud is pursued including RHD feedback. We derive the threshold density depending on the distance, above which the cloud can keep collapsing owing to the shielding of H 2 dissociating radiation. We find that an H 2 shell formed ahead of an ionizing front works effectively to shield the H 2 dissociating radiation, leading to the positive feedback for the secondary Pop III star formation. Also, near the threshold density, the envelope of gas cloud is stripped significantly by a shock associated with an ionizing front. By comparing the mass accretion timescale with the Kelvin–Helmholtz timescale, we estimate the mass of secondary Pop III stars. It turns out that the stripping by a shock can reduce the mass of secondary Pop III stars down to ≈20 M ☉ .