The detection and characterization of highly magnified stars with JWST: prospects of finding Population III
Gravitational lensing may render individual high-mass stars detectable out to cosmological distances, and several extremely magnified stars have in recent years been detected out to redshifts z ≈ 6. Here, we present Muspelheim, a model for the evolving spectral energy distributions of both metal-enr...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/374291 |
| Acesso em linha: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/374291 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Gravitational lensing: micro Gravitational lensing: strong Stars: Population III –aDark ages, reionization, first stars. |
| Resumo: | Gravitational lensing may render individual high-mass stars detectable out to cosmological distances, and several extremely magnified stars have in recent years been detected out to redshifts z ≈ 6. Here, we present Muspelheim, a model for the evolving spectral energy distributions of both metal-enriched and metal-free stars at high redshifts. Using this model, we argue that lensed stars will form a highly biased sample of the intrinsic distribution of stars across the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, and that this bias will typically tend to fa v our the detection of lensed stars in evolved stages characterized by low effective temperatures, even though stars only spend a minor fraction of their lifetimes in such states. We also explore the prospects of detecting individual, lensed metal-free (Population III) stars at high redshifts using the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ). We find that very massive ( ≳ 100 M ) Population III stars at z ≳ 6 may potentially be detected by JWST in surv e ys co v ering large numbers of strong-lensing clusters, provided that the Population III stellar initial mass function is sufficiently top-heavy, that these stars e volve to ef fecti ve temperatures ≤ 15000 K, and that the cosmic star formation rate density of Pop III stars reaches ≳ 10 −4 M cMpc −3 yr −1 at z ≈ 6–10. Various ways to distinguish metal-free lensed stars from metal-enriched ones are also discussed. |
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