arXiv subjects

A. Ferrara

Publications and source records attributed to A. Ferrara.

At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

First Stars Contribution to the Near Infrared Background Fluctuations

We show that the emission from the first, metal-free stars inside Population III objects (PopIIIs) are needed to explain the level of fluctuations in the Near Infrared Background (NIRB) recently discovered by Kashlinsky et al. (2002), at least at the shortest wavelengths. Clustering of (unresolved) Pop IIIs can in fact account for the entire signal at almost all the ~1-30 arcsec scales probed by observations in the J band. Their contribution fades away at shorter frequencies and becomes negligible in the K band. ``Normal'', highly clustered, ~3 galaxies undergoing intense star-formation such as those found in the Hubble Deep Fields can 'fill in' this gap and provide for the missing signal. It is in fact found that their contribution to the intensity fluctuations is the dominant one at lambda=2.17 mum, while it gradually looses importance in the H and J bands. The joint contribution from these two populations of cosmic objects is able, within the errors, to reproduce the observed power spectrum in the whole Near Infrared range on small angular scales (theta < 200" for Pop III protogalaxies). Signals on larger scales detected by other experiments instead require the presence of more local sources.

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arXiv2003

Low-Mass Relics of Early Star Formation

The earliest stars to form in the Universe were the first sources of light, heat and metals after the Big Bang. The products of their evolution will have had a profound impact on subsequent generations of stars. Recent studies of primordial star formation have shown that, in the absence of metals (elements heavier than helium), the formation of stars with masses 100 times that of the Sun would have been strongly favoured, and that low-mass stars could not have formed before a minimum level of metal enrichment had been reached. The value of this minimum level is very uncertain, but is likely to be between 10^{-6} and 10^{-4} that of the Sun. Here we show that the recent discovery of the most iron-poor star known indicates the presence of dust in extremely low-metallicity gas, and that this dust is crucial for the formation of lower-mass second-generation stars that could survive until today. The dust provides a pathway for cooling the gas that leads to fragmentation of the precursor molecular cloud into smaller clumps, which become the lower-mass stars.

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arXiv2003

Molecular Hydrogen in Damped Ly-alpha Systems: Spatial Distribution

To interpret H_2 quasar absorption line observations in Damped Ly-alpha clouds (DLAs), we model the H_2 spatial distribution within a DLA. Based on numerical simulations of disk structures with parameters similar to those derived for such absorbers, we calculate the H_2 distribution as a function of ultraviolet background (UVB) intensity and dust-to-gas ratio. For typical values of these two quantities we find that the area in which the H_2 fraction exceeds 10^{-6} (typical observational detection limit) only covers $\la 10$% of the disk surface, i.e. H_2 has a very inhomogeneous, clumpy distribution even at these low abundance levels. This explains the relative paucity of H_2 detections in DLAs. We also show the dependence of the covering fraction of H_2 on dust-to-gas ratio and UVB intensity and we comment on the physics governing the H_2 chemical network at high redshift.

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arXiv2003

Early Reionization by the First Galaxies

Large-scale polarization of the cosmic microwave background measured by the WMAP satellite requires a mean optical depth to Thomson scattering, tau_e ~ 0.17. The reionization of the universe must therefore have begun at relatively high redshift. We have studied the reionization process using supercomputer simulations of a large and representative region of a universe which has cosmological parameters consistent with the WMAP results. Our simulations follow both the radiative transfer of ionizing photons and the formation and evolution of the galaxy population which produces them. A previously published model with a standard stellar IMF, with a moderate photon escape fraction from galaxies and with ionizing photon production as expected for zero metallicity stars produces tau_e = 0.104, which is within 1.0 to 1.5-sigma of the ``best'' WMAP value. Values up to 0.16 can be produced by taking larger escape fractions or a top heavy IMF. The data do not require a separate populations of ``miniquasars'' or of stars forming in objects with total masses below 10^9 M_sun. Reconciling such early reionization with the observed Gunn-Peterson troughs in z>6 quasars may be challenging. Possible resolutions of this problem are discussed.

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arXiv2003

Is Primordial He Truly from Big Bang ?

Population III stars are now believed to contribute to the observed Near Infrared Background (NIRB) and heavy element pollution of the intergalactic medium. Here we show that a Pop III contribution to the primordial He abundance consistent with NIRB constraints, might mask a lower value for the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) He abundance.

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arXiv2002

The Lyalpha Forest Around High Redshift Galaxies

Motivated by the relative lack of neutral hydrogen around Lyman Break Galaxies deduced from recent observations, we investigate the properties of the Lyalpha forest around high redshift galaxies. The study is based on improved numerical SPH simulations implementing, in addition to standard processes, a new scheme for multiphase and outflow physics description. Although on large scales our simulations reproduce a number of statistical properties of the IGM (because of the small filling factor of shock-heated gas), they underpredict the Lyalpha optical depth decrease inside 1 Mpc/h of the galaxies by a factor of ~2. We interpret this result as due to the combined effect of infall occurring along the filaments, which prevents efficient halo gas clearing by the outflow, and the insufficient increase of (collisional) hydrogen ionization produced by the temperature increase inside the hot, outflow-carved bubble. Unless an observational selection bias is present, we speculate that local photoionization could be the only viable explanation to solve the puzzle.

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arXiv2002

The Imprint of the Cosmic Dark Ages on the Near Infrared Background

The redshifted light of the first (Pop III) stars might substantially contribute to the near infrared background (NIRB). By fitting recent data with models including up-to-date Pop III stellar spectra, we find that such stars can indeed account for the whole NIRB residual (i.e. after `normal' galaxy contribution subtraction) if the high redshift star formation efficiency is f = 10%-50%, depending on the IMF (the top-heaviest requiring lowest efficiency) and on the unknown galaxy contribution in the L band (our models, however, suggest it to be negligible). Such epoch of Pop III star formation ends in all models by z_end ~ 8.8, with a hard limit z_end < 9 set by J band observations. To prevent an associated IGM over-enrichment with heavy elements compared to observed levels in the IGM, pair-instability supernovae must be the dominant heavy element sources. Alternative explanations must break the light-metal production link by advocating very massive stars (M > 260 M_sun) locking their nucleosynthetic products in the compact remnant or by postulating an extremely inhomogeneous metal enrichment of the Ly alpha forest. We discuss these possibilities in detail along with the uncertainties related to the adopted zodiacal light model.

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arXiv2002

Effects of dust grains on early galaxy evolution

Stars form out of molecular gas and supply dust grains during their last evolutionary stages; in turn hydrogen molecules (H2) are produced more efficiently on dust grains. Therefore, dust can drastically accelerate H2 formation, leading to an enhancement of star formation activity. In order to examine the first formation of stars and dust in galaxies, we model the evolution of galaxies in the redshift range of 5 5) galaxies in sub-millimetre and near-infrared bands. We find that: i) ALMA can detect dust emission from several thousands of galaxies per square degree, and ii) NGST can detect the stellar emission from 10^6 galaxies per square degree. Further observational checks of our predictions include the integrated flux of metal (oxygen and carbon) lines. We finally discuss possible color selection strategies for high-redshift galaxy searches.

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arXiv2002

Warm-hot intergalactic baryons revealed

Several popular cosmological models predict that most of the baryonic mass in the local universe is located in filamentary and sheet-like structures associated with galaxy overdensities. This gas is expected to be gravitationally heated to ~10^6 K and therefore emitting in the soft X-rays. We have detected diffuse soft X-ray structures in a high Galactic latitude ROSAT field after point source subtraction and correction for Galactic absorption. These diffuse structures have an X-ray energy distribution that is much softer than expected from clusters, groups or unresolved emission from AGNs, but are consistent with that expected from a diffuse warm intergalactic medium. To discriminate between a Galactic or extragalactic nature of the diffuse gas we have correlated the soft X--map with multiband optical images in this field. We have found a significant overdensity of galaxies in correspondence with the strongest diffuse X-ray structure. The photometric redshift distribution of the galaxies over the X-ray peak has an excess over field galaxies at z~0.45. This result strongly suggests that the diffuse X-ray flux is due to extragalactic emission by warm gas associated with an overdense galaxy region at z~0.45.

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arXiv2002

First stars, very massive black holes and metals

Recent studies suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) of the first stars was likely to be extremely top-heavy, unlike what is observed at present. We propose a scenario to generate fragmentation to lower masses once the first massive stars have formed and derive constraints on the primordial IMF. We estimate the mass fraction of pair-unstable supernovae, shown to be the dominant sources of the first heavy elements. These metals enrich the gas up to about $10^{-5}$ solar metallicity, when a transition to efficient cooling-driven fragmentation occurs producing 1 solar mass clumps. We argue that the remaining fraction of the first stars ends up in 100 solar mass VMBHs (Very Massive Black Holes). We obtain constraints on the fraction of first stars that contribute to the initial metal enrichment and the transition redshift for primordial IMF away from a top-heavy one, by making various assumptions about the fate of these VMBHs at late times. We conclude with a discussion of several hitherto unexplored implications of a high-mass dominated star formation mode in the early Universe.

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arXiv2002

Dust and hydrogen molecules in the extremely metal-poor dwarf galaxy SBS 0335-052

During the early stages of galaxy evolution, the metallicity is generally low and nearby metal-poor star-forming galaxies may provide templates for primordial star formation. In particular, the dust content of such objects is of great importance since early molecular formation can take place on grains. To gain insight into primeval galaxies at high redshift, we examine the dust content of the nearby extremely low-metallicity galaxy SBS 0335-052 which hosts a very young starburst (< 10 Myr). In young galaxies, the dust formation rate in Type II supernovae governs the amount of dust, and by incorporating recent results on dust production in Type II supernovae we model the evolution of dust content. If the star-forming region is compact (< 100 pc), as suggested by observations of SBS 0335-052, our models consistently explain the quantity of dust, far-infrared luminosity, and dust temperature in this low-metallicity object. We also discuss the H_2 abundance. The compactness of the region is important to H_2 formation, because the optical depth of dust for UV photons becomes large and H_2 dissociation is suppressed. We finally focus on implications for damped Ly alpha systems.

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arXiv2001

Lyman Continuum Escape from Inhomogeneous ISM

We have studied the effects of gas density inhomogeneities on the escape of ionising Lyman continuum (Lyc) photons from Milky Way-type galaxies via 3D numerical simulations using the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code CRASH (Ciardi et al. 2001). To this aim a comparison between a smooth Gaussian distribution (GDD) and an inhomogeneous, fractal one (FDD) has been made with realistic assumptions for the ionising stellar sources based on available data in the solar neighborhood. In both cases the escape fraction f_esc increases with ionisation rate N_gamma (although for the FDD with a flatter slope) and they become equal at N_gamma = 2*10^50 s^-1 where f_esc = 0.11. FDD allows escape fractions of the same order also at lower N_gamma, when Lyc photon escape is sharply suppressed by GDD. Values of the escape fraction as high as 0.6 can be reached (GDD) for N_gamma ~ 9*10^50 s^-1, corresponding to a star formation rate (SFR) of roughly 2 M_o yr^-1; at this ionising luminosity the FDD is less transparent (f_esc ~ 0.28). If high redshift galaxies have gas column densities similar to local ones, are characterized by such high SFRs and by a predominantly smooth (i.e.turbulence free) interstellar medium, our results suggest that they should considerably contribute to - and possibly dominate - the cosmic UV background.

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arXiv2001

The Fragmentation of Pre-enriched Primordial Objects

Recent theoretical investigations have suggested that the formation of the very first stars, forming out of metal-free gas, was fundamentally different from the present-day case. In this paper, we study the effect of metallicity on the evolution of the gas in a collapsing dark matter mini-halo. We model such a system as an isolated 3σpeak of mass 2x10^6 M_sun that collapses at z_coll=30, using smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The gas has a supposed level of pre-enrichment of either 10^-4 Z_sun or 10^-3 Z_sun. We find that the evolution proceeds very differently for the two cases. The gas in the lower metallicity simulation fails to undergo continued collapse and fragmentation, whereas the gas in the higher metallicity case dissipatively settles into the center of the dark matter halo. The central gas, characterized by densities n > 10^4 cm^-3, and a temperature, T \sim 90 K, which closely follows that of the CMB, is gravitationally unstable and undergoes vigorous fragmentation. We discuss the physical reason for the existence of a critical metallicity, Z_crit \sim 5x10^-4 Z_sun, and its possible dependence on redshift. Compared to the pure H/He case, the fragmentation of the 10^-3 Z_sun gas leads to a larger relative number of low-mass clumps.

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arXiv2000

Cosmological Reionization Around the First Stars: Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer

We study the evolution of ionization fronts around the first proto-galaxies by using high resolution numerical cosmological (Lambda+CDM model) simulations and Monte Carlo radiative transfer methods. We present the numerical scheme in detail and show the results of test runs from which we conclude that the scheme is both fast and accurate. As an example of interesting cosmological application, we study the reionization produced by a stellar source of total mass M=2 10^8 M_\odot turning on at z=12, located at a node of the cosmic web. The study includes a Spectral Energy Distribution of a zero-metallicity stellar population, and two Initial Mass Functions (Salpeter/Larson). The expansion of the I-front is followed as it breaks out from the galaxy and it is channeled by the filaments into the voids, assuming, in a 2D representation, a characteristic butterfly shape. The ionization evolution is very well tracked by our scheme, as realized by the correct treatment of the channeling and shadowing effects due to overdensities. We confirm previous claims that both the shape of the IMF and the ionizing power metallicity dependence are important to correctly determine the reionization of the universe.

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arXiv2000

Feedback Processes in the Early Universe

Feedback effects due to massive stars and supernovae in the first objects are shown to strongly regulate both galaxy formation/evolution and the reionization process. Here we review the most important ones in some detail. We discuss how Type II supernovae can be used as tracers of the first objects and detected with NGST, for which we predict supernova number counts including the effects of gravitational lensing. Preliminary results on the formation of dust in the ejecta of supernovae of primordial composition are also presented. We finally turn to the consideration of the process of inhomogeneous reionization due to primordial stellar sources by means of high resolution numerical simulations, allowing for a self-consistent treatment of the above feedback processes. These simulations allow us to draw conclusions on the evolution and epoch of reionization and about the fate of reionizing objects. We conclude that a large fraction (~ 99%) of collapsed objects must be dark at redshift around eight.

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arXiv1999

CMB Anisotropies due to Feedback-Regulated Inhomogeneous Reionization

We calculate the secondary anisotropies in the CMB produced by inhomogeneous reionization from simulations in which the effects of radiative and stellar feedback effects on galaxy formation have been included. This allows to self-consistently determine the beginning ($z_i\approx 30$), the duration ($ δz\approx 20$) and the (nonlinear) evolution of the reionization process for a critical density CDM model. In addition, from the simulated spatial distribution of ionized regions, we are able to calculate the evolution of the two-point ionization correlation function, $C_χ$, and obtain the power spectrum of the anisotropies, $C_\ell$, in the range $5000 < \ell < 10^6$. The power spectrum has a broad maximum around $\ell \approx 30000$, where it reaches the value $2\times 10^{-12}$. We also show that the angular correlation function $C(θ)$ is not Gaussian, but at separation angles $% θ\lower.5ex\hbox{\ltsima} 10^{-4}$ rad it can be approximated by a modified Lorentzian shape; at larger separations an anticorrelation signal is predicted. Detection of signals as above will be possible with future mm-wavelength interferometers like ALMA, which appears as an optimum instrument to search for signatures of inhomogeneous reionization.

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arXiv1999

Gravitational Waves Signals from the Collapse of the First Stars

We study the gravitational wave emission from the first stars which are assumed to be Very Massive Objects (VMOs). We take into account various feedback (both radiative and stellar) effects regulating the collapse of objects in the early universe and thus derive the VMO initial mass function and formation rate. If the final fate of VMOs is to collapse, leaving very massive black hole remnants, then the gravitational waves emitted during each collapse would be seen as a stochastic background. The predicted spectral strain amplitude in a critical density Cold Dark Matter universe peaks in the frequency range \approx 5 \times 10^{-4}-5 \times 10^{-3} Hz where it has a value in the range \approx 10^{-20}-10^{-19} Hz^{-1/2}, and might be detected by LISA. The expected emission rate is roughly 4000 events/yr, resulting in a stationary, discrete sequence of bursts, i.e. a shot--noise signal.

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arXiv1999

Inhomogeneous Reionization Regulated by Radiative and Stellar Feedbacks

We study the inhomogeneous reionization in a critical density CDM universe due to stellar sources, including Population III objects. The spatial distribution of the sources is obtained from high resolution numerical N-body simulations. We calculate the source properties taking into account a self-consistent treatment of both radiative (ie ionizing and H2 -photodissociating photons) and stellar (ie SN explosions) feedbacks regulated by massive stars. This allows us to describe the topology of the ionized and dissociated regions at various cosmic epochs and derive the evolution of H, He, and H2 filling factors, soft UV background, cosmic star formation rate and the final fate of ionizing objects. The main results are: (i) galaxies reionize the IGM by z~10 (with some uncertainty related to the gas clumping factor), whereas H2 is completely dissociated already by z~25; (ii) reionization is mostly due to the relatively massive objects which collapse via H line cooling, while objects whose formation relies on H2 cooling alone are insufficient to this aim; (iii) the diffuse soft UV background is the major source of radiative feedback effects for z<15; at higher z direct flux from neighboring objects dominates; (iv) the match of the calculated cosmic star formation history with the one observed at lower redshifts suggests that the conversion efficiency of baryons into stars is ~1%; (v) we find that a very large population of dark objects which failed to form stars is present by z~8. We discuss and compare our results with similar previous studies.

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