Abstract:

Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed surprisingly bright and rapidly evolving galaxies in the early universe, challenging our understanding of how the first stars and galaxies formed. These discoveries raise fundamental questions about the nature of the first generation of stars, their formation environments, and their role in shaping early cosmic evolution. In particular, how primordial gas fragmented and formed the first stars remains an important unsolved problem.

In this talk, I will explore the role of supersonic turbulence in the formation of Population III stars, the first generation of stars born from primordial gas. Using high-resolution cosmological simulations with the GIZMO code, we investigate gas collapse and fragmentation in 15 primordial dark matter minihalos at redshifts of approximately 17–20. Our simulations reveal that gas accretion into growing dark matter halos naturally generates supersonic turbulence, with Mach numbers ranging from 1.8 to 4.2. These turbulent motions promote gas fragmentation into multiple gravitationally unstable clumps with masses ranging from a few to several tens of solar masses.

Our findings suggest that supersonic turbulence plays an important role in regulating primordial star formation and shaping the initial mass function of the first stars. I will discuss how these results advance our understanding of the earliest stellar populations and their potential implications for the formation and evolution of the first galaxies observed by JWST.