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P.S. Coppi (Yale University), V. Bromm (Cambridge University), R.B. Larson (Yale University)
We present results from three dimensional simulations of the collapse and fragmentation of primordial, zero-metal gas. We consider a variety of initial conditions and show that the gas fragments undergoing runaway collapse have a preferred mass scale, ~1000 Msun, set by the physics of molecular hydrogen cooling. Although this fragment mass scale is not necessarily the mass scale of the stars that eventually form out of the clumps, it strongly suggests the IMF for primordial star is biased towards massive stars (~100 Msun and above). We also examine the collapse of gas with trace metals. Until the gas metallicity reaches Z ~10-3 Zsun, we find that molecular hydrogen still dominates cooling, and thus star formation may still proceed in a top-heavy mode.
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