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Nucleosynthesis, Reionization, And The Mass Function Of The First Stars, Jason Tumlinson, Aparna Venkatesan, J Shull
Nucleosynthesis, Reionization, And The Mass Function Of The First Stars, Jason Tumlinson, Aparna Venkatesan, J Shull
Physics and Astronomy
We critique the hypothesisthat the first starswere very massive stars(VMSs; M > 140 M).We review the twomajor lines of evidencefor the existence ofVMSs: (1) that therelative metal abundances ofextremely metal-poor Galactic halostars show evidence ofVMS enrichment and (2)that the high electron-scatteringoptical depth (e) tothe cosmic microwave backgroundfound by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe(WMAP) requires VMSs forreionization in a concordanceCDM cosmology. The yieldpatterns of VMSs explodingas pair-instability supernovae areincompatible with the Fe-peakand r-process abundances inhalo stars. Models includingType II supernovae and/or"hypernovae" from zero-metallicity progenitorswith M = 840 Mcan better explain theobserved trends. We usethe …