The effects of convection criteria on the evolution of Population III stars and the detectability of their supernovae

T. M. Lawlor, T. R. Young, J. Teffs, J. MacDonald

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first stars continue to elude modern telescopes, but much has been accomplished in observing the glow of the first galaxies. As detection capabilities improve we will eventually resolve these galaxies, but hopes of observing an individual star remains dim for the foreseeable future. However, our first view of an individual first star may be possible due to its explosion. In this work, we present evolution calculations for Population III (Pop III) stars and their subsequent supernovae explosions. Our evolution models include a mass range of 15-100M, each with initial heavy element abundance Z = 10-14. Our models are evolved from pre-main sequence through formation of an iron core, and thus near to core collapse. We find that modelling the evolution of these stars is very sensitive to the choice of convection criterion; here we provide evolution results using both the Schwarzschild and Ledoux criteria. We also use the final structure from our models for numerical simulation of their supernovae light curves using a radiation hydrodynamics code. In doing so, we estimate a lower bound of initial model mass that may be possible to observe in near future. We also find that our 40M Schwarzschild evolution model produces the brightest supernova peak and statistically should be themost frequently observed. At our highest redshift z=15, only the 60M Schwarzschild model at peak magnitude starts to rival the 40M model in brightness.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1618-1630
Number of pages13
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume450
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 10 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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