Star Formation at Very Low Metallicity. V. The Greater Importance of Initial Conditions Compared to Metallicity Thresholds

The formation of the first stars out of metal-free gas appears to result in stars at least an order of magnitude more massive than in the present-day case. We here consider what controls the transition from a primordial to a modern initial mass function. It has been proposed that this occurs when effective metal line cooling occurs at a metallicity threshold of Z/Z > 10-3.5. We study the influence of low levels of metal enrichment on the cooling and collapse of initially ionized gas in small protogalactic halos using three-dimensional, smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations with particle splitting. Our initial conditions represent protogalaxies forming within a previously ionized H II region that has not yet had time to cool and recombine. These differ considerably from those used in simulations predicting a metallicity threshold, where the gas was initially cold and only partially ionized. In the centrally condensed potential that we study here, a wide variety of initial conditions for the gas yields a monolithic central collapse. Our models show no fragmentation during collapse to number densities as high as 105 cm-3, for metallicities reaching as high as 10-1 Z , far above the threshold suggested by previous work. Rotation allows for the formation of gravitationally stable gas disks over large fractions of the local Hubble time. Turbulence slows the growth of the central density slightly, but both spherically symmetric and turbulent initial conditions collapse and form a single sink particle. We therefore argue that fragmentation at moderate density depends on the initial conditions for star formation more than on the metal abundances present. The actual initial conditions to be considered still need to be determined in detail by observation and modeling of galaxy formation. Metal abundance may still drive fragmentation at very high densities due to dust cooling, perhaps giving an alternative metallicity threshold.