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arXiv 0810.3712astro-ph
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Milky Way晕中再电离的化石遗迹

Fossil remnants of reionization in the halo of the Milky Way

P. Madau, M. Kuhlen, J. Diemand, B. Moore, M. Zemp, D. Potter, J. Stadel

摘要:

我们最近完成的10亿粒子通过Lactea II模拟银河系大小的暗物质晕解析了今天在主宿主的维里化区域内轨道运行的50,000多个引力束缚团块。其中约有2,300个暗晕有一个或多个红移11的1 e6 Msun以上的“祖先”,也就是说,它们的质量足以使它们的气体在宇宙再电离之前通过H2的激发而冷却并碎裂。我们计算了4,500个这样的祖先:如果它们能够将一小部分气体含量转化为具有Salpeter初始质量函数(IMF)的非常贫金属的恒星,那么它们今天的亮度将达到M_V=6.7/太阳质量的恒星。假设一个普遍的重子分数,我们表明,平均恒星形成效率低至0.1%,低于1 e8 Msun的祖先将过度生产的斯隆数字巡天观测到的微弱银河系矮椭球体的丰度。恒星形成在第一个光必须发生在IMF缺乏恒星低于0.9 Msun,或本质上是非常低效的小暗物质晕。如果是后者,我们的结果可能被视为星系形成中最小尺度的另一个暗示。

英文摘要:

Our recently completed one billion particle Via Lactea II simulation of a Milky Way-sized dark matter halo resolves over 50,000 gravitationally bound clumps orbiting today within the virialized region of the main host. About 2,300 of these subhalos have one or more "progenitors" above 1e6 Msun at redshift 11, i.e. massive enough for their gas to have cooled via excitation of H2 and fragmented prior to the epoch of cosmic reionization. We count 4,500 such progenitors: if these were able to convert a fraction of their gas content into very metal-poor stars with a Salpeter initial mass function (IMF), they would be shining today with a visual magnitude M_V=6.7 per solar mass in stars. Assuming a universal baryon fraction, we show that mean star formation efficiencies as low as 0.1% in progenitors below 1e8 Msun would overproduce the abundance of the faint Galatic dwarf spheroidals observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Star formation at first light must have occurred either with an IMF lacking stars below 0.9 Msun, or was intrinsically very inefficient in small dark matter halos. If the latter, our results may be viewed as another hint of a minimum scale in galaxy formation.

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