The Formation of Population III Binaries from Cosmological Initial Conditions
Matthew J. Turk,1,*
Tom Abel,1
Brian O'Shea2
Previous high-resolution cosmological simulations predicted
that the first stars to appear in the early universe were very
massive and formed in isolation. Here, we discuss a cosmological
simulation in which the central 50
M
(where
M is the mass of
the Sun) clump breaks up into two cores having a mass ratio
of two to one, with one fragment collapsing to densities of
10
–8 grams per cubic centimeter. The second fragment,
at a distance of ~800 astronomical units, is also optically
thick to its own cooling radiation from molecular hydrogen lines
but is still able to cool via collision-induced emission. The
two dense peaks will continue to accrete from the surrounding
cold gas reservoir over a period of ~10
5 years and will likely
form a binary star system.
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824–2320, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mturk{at}slac.stanford.edu
