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Tetsu Kitayama

Publications and source records attributed to Tetsu Kitayama.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Hitomi Observations of the LMC SNR N132D: Highly Redshifted X-ray Emission from Iron Ejecta

We present Hitomi observations of N132D, a young, X-ray bright, O-rich core-collapse supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Despite a very short observation of only 3.7 ks, the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) easily detects the line complexes of highly ionized S K and Fe K with 16-17 counts in each. The Fe feature is measured for the first time at high spectral resolution. Based on the plausible assumption that the Fe K emission is dominated by He-like ions, we find that the material responsible for this Fe emission is highly redshifted at ~800 km/s compared to the local LMC interstellar medium (ISM), with a 90% credible interval of 50-1500 km/s if a weakly informative prior is placed on possible line broadening. This indicates (1) that the Fe emission arises from the supernova ejecta, and (2) that these ejecta are highly asymmetric, since no blue-shifted component is found. The S K velocity is consistent with the local LMC ISM, and is likely from swept-up ISM material. These results are consistent with spatial mapping that shows the He-like Fe concentrated in the interior of the remnant and the S tracing the outer shell. The results also show that even with a very small number of counts, direct velocity measurements from Doppler-shifted lines detected in extended objects like supernova remnants are now possible. Thanks to the very low SXS background of ~1 event per spectral resolution element per 100 ks, such results are obtainable during short pointed or slew observations with similar instruments. This highlights the power of high-spectral-resolution imaging observations, and demonstrates the new window that has been opened with Hitomi and will be greatly widened with future missions such as the X-ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (XARM) and Athena.

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Glimpse of the highly obscured HMXB IGR J16318-4848 with Hitomi

We report a Hitomi observation of IGR J16318-4848, a high-mass X-ray binary system with an extremely strong absorption of N_H~10^{24} cm^{-2}. Previous X-ray studies revealed that its spectrum is dominated by strong fluorescence lines of Fe as well as continuum emission. For physical and geometrical insight into the nature of the reprocessing material, we utilize the high spectroscopic resolving power of the X-ray microcalorimeter (the soft X-ray spectrometer; SXS) and the wide-band sensitivity by the soft and hard X-ray imager (SXI and HXI) aboard Hitomi. Even though photon counts are limited due to unintended off-axis pointing, the SXS spectrum resolves Fe K{α_1} and K{α_2} lines and puts strong constraints on the line centroid and width. The line width corresponds to the velocity of 160^{+300}_{-70} km s^{-1}. This represents the most accurate, and smallest, width measurement of this line made so far from any X-ray binary, much less than the Doppler broadening and shift expected from speeds which are characteristic of similar systems. Combined with the K-shell edge energy measured by the SXI and HXI spectra, the ionization state of Fe is estimated to be in the range of Fe I--IV. Considering the estimated ionization parameter and the distance between the X-ray source and the absorber, the density and thickness of the materials are estimated. The extraordinarily strong absorption and the absence of a Compton shoulder component is confirmed. These characteristics suggest reprocessing materials which are distributed in a narrow solid angle or scattering primarily with warm free electrons or neutral hydrogen.

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Hitomi Observation of Radio Galaxy NGC 1275: The First X-ray Microcalorimeter Spectroscopy of Fe-Kα Line Emission from an Active Galactic Nucleus

The origin of the narrow Fe-Kα fluorescence line at 6.4 keV from active galactic nuclei has long been under debate; some of the possible sites are the outer accretion disk, the broad line region, a molecular torus, or interstellar/intracluster media. In February-March 2016, we performed the first X-ray microcalorimeter spectroscopy with the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) onboard the Hitomi satellite of the Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy NGC 1275 at the center of the Perseus cluster of galaxies. With the high energy resolution of ~5 eV at 6 keV achieved by Hitomi/SXS, we detected the Fe-Kα line with ~5.4 σ significance. The velocity width is constrained to be 500-1600 km s$^{-1}$ (FWHM for Gaussian models) at 90% confidence. The SXS also constrains the continuum level from the NGC 1275 nucleus up to ~20 keV, giving an equivalent width ~20 eV of the 6.4 keV line. Because the velocity width is narrower than that of broad Hα line of ~2750 km s$^{-1}$, we can exclude a large contribution to the line flux from the accretion disk and the broad line region. Furthermore, we performed pixel map analyses on the Hitomi/SXS data and image analyses on the Chandra archival data, and revealed that the Fe-Kα line comes from a region within ~1.6 kpc from the NGC 1275 core, where an active galactic nucleus emission dominates, rather than that from intracluster media. Therefore, we suggest that the source of the Fe-Kα line from NGC 1275 is likely a low-covering fraction molecular torus or a rotating molecular disk which probably extends from a pc to hundreds pc scale in the active galactic nucleus system.

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Atmospheric gas dynamics in the Perseus cluster observed with Hitomi

Extending the earlier measurements reported in Hitomi collaboration (2016, Nature, 535, 117), we examine the atmospheric gas motions within the central 100~kpc of the Perseus cluster using observations obtained with the Hitomi satellite. After correcting for the point spread function of the telescope and using optically thin emission lines, we find that the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of the hot gas is remarkably low and mostly uniform. The velocity dispersion reaches maxima of approximately 200~km~s$^{-1}$ toward the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) and toward the AGN inflated north-western `ghost' bubble. Elsewhere within the observed region, the velocity dispersion appears constant around 100~km~s$^{-1}$. We also detect a velocity gradient with a 100~km~s$^{-1}$ amplitude across the cluster core, consistent with large-scale sloshing of the core gas. If the observed gas motions are isotropic, the kinetic pressure support is less than 10\% of the thermal pressure support in the cluster core. The well-resolved optically thin emission lines have Gaussian shapes, indicating that the turbulent driving scale is likely below 100~kpc, which is consistent with the size of the AGN jet inflated bubbles. We also report the first measurement of the ion temperature in the intracluster medium, which we find to be consistent with the electron temperature. In addition, we present a new measurement of the redshift to the brightest cluster galaxy NGC~1275.

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Measurements of resonant scattering in the Perseus cluster core with Hitomi SXS

Thanks to its high spectral resolution (~5 eV at 6 keV), the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) on board Hitomi enables us to measure the detailed structure of spatially resolved emission lines from highly ionized ions in galaxy clusters for the first time. In this series of papers, using the SXS we have measured the velocities of gas motions, metallicities and the multi-temperature structure of the gas in the core of the Perseus cluster. Here, we show that when inferring physical properties from line emissivities in systems like Perseus, the resonant scattering (RS) effect should be taken into account. In the Hitomi waveband, RS mostly affects the FeXXV He$α$ line ($w$) - the strongest line in the spectrum. The flux measured by Hitomi in this line is suppressed by a factor ~1.3 in the inner ~30 kpc, compared to predictions for an optically thin plasma; the suppression decreases with the distance from the center. The $w$ line also appears slightly broader than other lines from the same ion. The observed distortions of the $w$ line flux, shape and distance dependence are all consistent with the expected effect of the resonant scattering in the Perseus core. By measuring the ratio of fluxes in optically thick ($w$) and thin (FeXXV forbidden, He$β$, Ly$α$) lines, and comparing these ratios with predictions from Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations, the velocities of gas motions have been obtained. The results are consistent with the direct measurements of gas velocities from line broadening described elsewhere in this series, although the systematic and statistical uncertainties remain significant. Further improvements in the predictions of line emissivities in plasma models, and deeper observations with future X-ray missions will enable RS measurements to provide powerful constraints on the amplitude and anisotropy of clusters gas motions.

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Hitomi X-ray studies of Giant Radio Pulses from the Crab pulsar

To search for giant X-ray pulses correlated with the giant radio pulses (GRPs) from the Crab pulsar, we performed a simultaneous observation of the Crab pulsar with the X-ray satellite Hitomi in the 2 -- 300 keV band and the Kashima NICT radio observatory in the 1.4 -- 1.7 GHz band with a net exposure of about 2 ks on 25 March 2016, just before the loss of the Hitomi mission.The timing performance of the Hitomi instruments was confirmed to meet the timing requirement and about 1,000 and 100 GRPs were simultaneously observed at the main and inter-pulse phases, respectively, and we found no apparent correlation between the giant radio pulses and the X-ray emission in either the main or inter-pulse phases.All variations are within the 2 sigma fluctuations of the X-ray fluxes at the pulse peaks, and the 3 sigma upper limits of variations of main- or inter- pulse GRPs are 22\% or 80\% of the peak flux in a 0.20 phase width, respectively, in the 2 -- 300 keV band.The values become 25\% or 110\% for main or inter-pulse GRPs, respectively, when the phase width is restricted into the 0.03 phase.Among the upper limits from the Hitomi satellite, those in the 4.5-10 keV and the 70-300 keV are obtained for the first time, and those in other bands are consistent with previous reports.Numerically, the upper limits of main- and inter-pulse GRPs in the 0.20 phase width are about (2.4 and 9.3) $\times 10^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$, respectively. No significant variability in pulse profiles implies that the GRPs originated from a local place within the magnetosphere and the number of photon-emitting particles temporally increases.However, the results do not statistically rule out variations correlated with the GRPs, because the possible X-ray enhancement may appear due to a $>0.02$\% brightening of the pulse-peak flux under such conditions.

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Blind millimeter line emitter search using ALMA data toward gravitational lensing clusters

We present the results of a blind millimeter line emitter search using ALMA Band 6 data with a single frequency tuning toward four gravitational lensing clusters (RXJ1347.5-1145, Abell S0592, MACS J0416.1-2403, and Abell 2744). We construct three-dimensional signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) cubes with 60 MHz and 100 MHz binning, and search for millimeter line emitters. We do not detect any line emitters with a peak S/N > 5, although we do find a line emitter candidate with a peak S/N ~ 4.5. These results provide upper limits to the CO(3-2), CO(4-3), CO(5-4), and [CII] luminosity functions at z ~ 0.3, 0.7, 1.2, and 6, respectively. Because of the magnification effect of gravitational lensing clusters, the new data provide the first constraints on the CO and [CII] luminosity functions at unprecedentedly low luminosity levels, i.e., down to $<~ 10^{-3}-10^{-1} $Mpc$^{-3}$ dex$^{-1}$ at $L'_{CO} ~ 10^8-10^{10}$ K km $s^{-1}$ pc$^2$ and $<~ 10^{-3}-10^{-2}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ dex$^{-1}$ at $L_[CII] ~ 10^8-10^{10} L_\odot$, respectively. Although the constraints to date are not stringent yet, we find that the evolution of the CO and [CII] luminosity functions are broadly consistent with the predictions of semi-analytical models. This study demonstrates that the wide observations with a single frequency tuning toward gravitational lensing clusters are promising for constraining the CO and [CII] luminosity functions.

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Search for Thermal X-ray Features from the Crab nebula with Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer

The Crab nebula originated from a core-collapse supernova (SN) explosion observed in 1054 A.D. When viewed as a supernova remnant (SNR), it has an anomalously low observed ejecta mass and kinetic energy for an Fe-core collapse SN. Intensive searches were made for a massive shell that solves this discrepancy, but none has been detected. An alternative idea is that the SN1054 is an electron-capture (EC) explosion with a lower explosion energy by an order of magnitude than Fe-core collapse SNe. In the X-rays, imaging searches were performed for the plasma emission from the shell in the Crab outskirts to set a stringent upper limit to the X-ray emitting mass. However, the extreme brightness of the source hampers access to its vicinity. We thus employed spectroscopic technique using the X-ray micro-calorimeter onboard the Hitomi satellite. By exploiting its superb energy resolution, we set an upper limit for emission or absorption features from yet undetected thermal plasma in the 2-12 keV range. We also re-evaluated the existing Chandra and XMM-Newton data. By assembling these results, a new upper limit was obtained for the X-ray plasma mass of <~ 1Mo for a wide range of assumed shell radius, size, and plasma temperature both in and out of the collisional equilibrium. To compare with the observation, we further performed hydrodynamic simulations of the Crab SNR for two SN models (Fe-core versus EC) under two SN environments (uniform ISM versus progenitor wind). We found that the observed mass limit can be compatible with both SN models if the SN environment has a low density of <~ 0.03 cm-3 (Fe core) or <~ 0.1 cm-3 (EC) for the uniform density, or a progenitor wind density somewhat less than that provided by a mass loss rate of 10-5 Mo yr-1 at 20 km s-1 for the wind environment.

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Hitomi constraints on the 3.5 keV line in the Perseus galaxy cluster

High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy with Hitomi was expected to resolve the origin of the faint unidentified E=3.5 keV emission line reported in several low-resolution studies of various massive systems, such as galaxies and clusters, including the Perseus cluster. We have analyzed the Hitomi first-light observation of the Perseus cluster. The emission line expected for Perseus based on the XMM-Newton signal from the large cluster sample under the dark matter decay scenario is too faint to be detectable in the Hitomi data. However, the previously reported 3.5 keV flux from Perseus was anomalously high compared to the sample-based prediction. We find no unidentified line at the reported high flux level. Taking into account the XMM measurement uncertainties for this region, the inconsistency with Hitomi is at a 99% significance for a broad dark-matter line and at 99.7% for a narrow line from the gas. We do not find anomalously high fluxes of the nearby faint K line or the Ar satellite line that were proposed as explanations for the earlier 3.5 keV detections. We do find a hint of a broad excess near the energies of high-n transitions of Sxvi (E=3.44 keV rest-frame) -- a possible signature of charge exchange in the molecular nebula and another proposed explanation for the unidentified line. While its energy is consistent with XMM pn detections, it is unlikely to explain the MOS signal. A confirmation of this interesting feature has to wait for a more sensitive observation with a future calorimeter experiment.

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Embedded Spiral Patterns in the Cool Core of the Massive Cluster of Galaxies Abell 1835

We present the properties of intracluster medium (ICM) in the cool core of the massive cluster of galaxies Abell 1835 obtained with the data by $ Chandra$ $X$-$ray$ $Observatory$. We find distinctive spiral patterns with the radius of 70 kpc (or 18 arcsec) as a whole in the residual image of X-ray surface brightness after the 2-dimensional ellipse model of surface brightness is subtracted. The size is smaller by a factor of 2 -- 4 than that of other clusters known to have a similar pattern. The spiral patterns consist of two arms. One of them appears as positive, and the other does as negative excesses in the residual image. Their X-ray spectra show that the ICM temperatures in the positive- and negative-excess regions are $5.09^{+0.12}_{-0.13}$ keV and $6.52^{+0.18}_{-0.15}$ keV, respectively. In contrast, no significant difference is found in the abundance or pressure, the latter of which suggests that the ICM in the two regions of the spiral patterns is in pressure equilibrium or close. The spatially-resolved X-ray spectroscopy of the central region ($r<40$ arcsec) divided into 92 sub-regions indicates that Abell 1835 is a typical cool core cluster. We also find that the spiral patterns extend from the cool core out to the hotter surrounding ICM. The residual image reveals some lumpy sub-structure in the cool core. The line-of-sight component of the disturbance velocity responsible for the sub-structures is estimated to be lower than 600 km/s. Abell 1835 may be now experiencing an off-axis minor merger.

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Projected Axis Ratios of Galaxy Clusters in the Horizon-AGN Simulation: Impact of Baryon Physics and Comparison with Observations

We characterize the non-sphericity of galaxy clusters by the projected axis ratio of spatial distribution of star, dark matter, and X-ray surface brightness (XSB). We select 40 simulated groups and clusters of galaxies with mass larger than 5E13 Msun from the Horizon simulation that fully incorporates the relevant baryon physics, in particular, the AGN feedback. We find that the baryonic physics around the central region of galaxy clusters significantly affects the non-sphericity of dark matter distribution even beyond the central region, approximately up to the half of the virial radius. Therefore it is very difficult to predict the the probability density function (PDF) of the projected axis ratio of XSB from dark-matter only N-body simulations as attempted in previous studies. Indeed we find that the PDF derived from our simulated clusters exhibits much better agreement with that from the observed X-ray clusters. This indicates that our present methodology to estimate the non-sphericity directly from the Horizon simulation is useful and promising. Further improvements in both numerical modeling and observational data will establish the non-sphericity of clusters as a cosmological test complementary to more conventional statistics based on spherically averaged quantities.

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Evolution and Statistics of Non-Sphericity of Dark Matter Halos from Cosmological N-Body Simulation

We revisit the non-sphericity of cluster-mass scale halos from cosmological N-body simulation on the basis of triaxial modelling. In order to understand the difference between the simulation results and the conventional ellipsoidal collapse model (EC), we first consider the evolution of individual simulated halos. The major difference between EC and the simulation becomes appreciable after the turn-around epoch. Moreover, it is sensitive to the individual evolution history of each halo. Despite such strong dependence on individual halos, the resulting nonsphericity of halos exhibits weak but robust mass dependence in a statistical fashion; massive halos are more spherical up to the turn-around, but gradually become less spherical by z = 0. This is clearly inconsistent with the EC prediction; massive halos are usually more spherical. In addition, at z=0, inner regions of the halos are less spherical than outer regions, i.e., the density distribution inside the halos is highly inhomogeneous and therefore not self-similar. Since most of previous fitting formulae for the PDF of axis ratio of triaxial ellipsoids have been constructed under the self-similarity assumption, they are not accurate. Indeed, we compute the PDF of projected axis ratio a1/a2 directly from the simulation data without the self-similarity assumption, and find that it is very sensitive to the assumption. The latter needs to be carefully taken into account in direct comparison with observations, and therefore we provide an empirical fitting formula for the PDF of a1/a2. Our preliminary analysis suggests that the derived PDF of a1/a2 roughly agrees with the current weak-lensing observations. More importantly, the present results will be useful in future exploration of the non-sphericity of clusters in X-ray and optical observations.

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The Quiescent Intracluster Medium in the Core of the Perseus Cluster

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe and are still forming. They are thus important probes of cosmological parameters and a host of astrophysical processes. Knowledge of the dynamics of the pervasive hot gas, which dominates in mass over stars in a cluster, is a crucial missing ingredient. It can enable new insights into mechanical energy injection by the central supermassive black hole and the use of hydrostatic equilibrium for the determination of cluster masses. X-rays from the core of the Perseus cluster are emitted by the 50 million K diffuse hot plasma filling its gravitational potential well. The Active Galactic Nucleus of the central galaxy NGC1275 is pumping jetted energy into the surrounding intracluster medium, creating buoyant bubbles filled with relativistic plasma. These likely induce motions in the intracluster medium and heat the inner gas preventing runaway radiative cooling; a process known as Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback. Here we report on Hitomi X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster core, which reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere where the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 164+/-10 km/s in a region 30-60 kpc from the central nucleus. A gradient in the line-of-sight velocity of 150+/-70 km/s is found across the 60 kpc image of the cluster core. Turbulent pressure support in the gas is 4% or less of the thermodynamic pressure, with large scale shear at most doubling that estimate. We infer that total cluster masses determined from hydrostatic equilibrium in the central regions need little correction for turbulent pressure.

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Confrontation of Top-Hat Spherical Collapse against Dark Halos from Cosmological N-Body Simulations

The top-hat spherical collapse model (TSC) is one of the most fundamental analytical frameworks to describe the non-linear growth of cosmic structure. TSC has motivated, and been widely applied in, various researches even in the current era of precision cosmology. While numerous studies exist to examine its validity against numerical simulations in a statistical fashion, there are few analyses to compare the TSC dynamics in an individual object-wise basis, which is what we attempt in the present paper. We extract 100 halos at z = 0 from a cosmological N-body simulation according to the conventional TSC criterion for the spherical over-density. Then we trace back their spherical counter-parts at earlier epochs. Just prior to the turn-around epoch of the halos, their dynamics is well approximated by TSC, but their turn-around epochs are systematically delayed and the virial radii are larger by ~ 20 percent on average relative to the TSC predictions. We find that this systematic deviation is mainly ascribed to the non-uniformity/inhomogeneity of dark matter density profiles and the non-zero velocity dispersions, both of which are neglected in TSC. In particular, the inside-out-collapse and shell-crossing of dark matter halos play an important role in generating the significant velocity dispersion. The implications of the present result are briefly discussed.

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The ASTRO-H X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly successful X-ray missions developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), with a planned launch in 2015. The ASTRO-H mission is equipped with a suite of sensitive instruments with the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E > 3 keV and a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft X-rays to gamma-rays. The simultaneous broad band pass, coupled with the high spectral resolution of Delta E < 7 eV of the micro-calorimeter, will enable a wide variety of important science themes to be pursued. ASTRO-H is expected to provide breakthrough results in scientific areas as diverse as the large-scale structure of the Universe and its evolution, the behavior of matter in the gravitational strong field regime, the physical conditions in sites of cosmic-ray acceleration, and the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters at different redshifts.

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Cosmological and Astrophysical Implications of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect provides a useful probe of cosmology and structure formation in the Universe. Recent years have seen rapid progress in both quality and quantity of its measurements. In this review, we overview cosmological and astrophysical implications of recent and near future observations of the effect. They include measuring the evolution of the cosmic microwave background radiation temperature, the distance-redshift relation out to high redshifts, number counts and power spectra of galaxy clusters, distributions and dynamics of intracluster plasma, and large-scale motions of the Universe.

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Validity of Hydrostatic Equilibrium in Galaxy Clusters from Cosmological Hydrodynamical Simulations

We examine the validity of the hydrostatic equilibrium (HSE) assumption for galaxy clusters using one of the highest-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We define and evaluate several effective mass terms corresponding to the Euler equations of the gas dynamics, and quantify the degree of the validity of HSE in terms of the mass estimate. We find that the mass estimated under the HSE assumption (the HSE mass) deviates from the true mass by up to ~ 30 %. This level of departure from HSE is consistent with the previous claims, but our physical interpretation is rather different. We demonstrate that the inertial term in the Euler equations makes a negligible contribution to the total mass, and the overall gravity of the cluster is balanced by the thermal gas pressure gradient and the gas acceleration term. Indeed the deviation from the HSE mass is well explained by the acceleration term at almost all radii. We also clarify the confusion of previous work due to the inappropriate application of the Jeans equations in considering the validity of HSE from the gas dynamics extracted from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.

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Low-mass star formation triggered by early supernova explosions

We study the formation of low-mass and extremely metal-poor stars in the early universe. Our study is motivated by the recent discovery of a low-mass (M < 0.8 Msun) and extremely metal-poor (Z <= 4.5 x 10^{-5} Zsun) star in the Galactic halo by Caffau et al. We propose a model that early supernova (SN) explosions trigger the formation of low-mass stars via shell fragmentation. We first perform one-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the evolution of an early SN remnant. We show that the shocked shell undergoes efficient radiative cooling and then becomes gravitationally unstable to fragment and collapse in about ten million years. We then follow the thermal evolution of the collapsing fragments using a one-zone code. Our one-zone calculation treats chemistry and radiative cooling self-consistently in low-metallicity gas. The collapsing gas cloud evolves roughly isothermally, until it cools rapidly by dust continuum emission at the density 10^{13}-10^{14} /cc. The cloud core then becomes thermally and gravitationally unstable and fragments. We argue that early SNe can trigger the formation of low-mass stars in the extremely metal-poor environment as Caffau et al. discovered recently.

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