Population III Star Formation During and After the Reionization Epoch

Understand

Population III star formation during the dark ages shifted from minihalos (~10^6 Msun) cooled via molecular hydrogen to more massive halos (~10^8 Msun) cooled via Ly-alpha as Lyman-Werner backgrounds progressively quenched molecular hydrogen cooling.

• Eventually, both modes of primordial star formation were suppressed by the chemical enrichment of the IGM.
• We present a comprehensive model for following the modes of Population III star formation that is based on a combination of analytical calculations and cosmological simulations.
• We characterize the properties of the transition from metal-free star formation to the first Population II clusters for an average region of the Universe and for the progenitors of the Milky Way.