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Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium and Production of Massive Black Holes

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Y.-Z. Qian1 and G. J. Wasserburg2

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A model for the chemical evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM) is presented using theoretical yields of very massive stars (VMSs; MVMS > 100 Msun) and Type II supernovae (SNe II). It is shown that if [Si/C] is indeed as high as ~0.7 in the IGM, then VMSs (MVMS ≈ 140-260 Msun) associated with pair-instability supernovae (PI-SNe) in low-mass (~105 Msun) halos at high redshift must produce at least 50% of the Si. The remainder is from later galactic outflows of SN II debris, which also provide most of the C and O. Both sources are required to account for the metal inventory in the IGM. The early VMS production must continue until redshift z ~ 15 so that the efficiency of VMS formation per low-mass halo is significantly below unity. Contributions from the later galactic outflows mainly occur at z ~ 4-6. Using a Salpeter initial mass function, we infer that the number of VMSs (MVMS ≈ 260-2000 Msun) producing massive black holes (MBHs) with an average mass langMMBHrang ~ 270-550 Msun is ≈0.72 times the number of VMSs associated with PI-SNe. The amount of metals (particularly Si) in the IGM that is attributable to PI-SNe is thus closely coupled with the total mass of MBHs produced in epochs prior to galaxy formation. Production of ~50% of the Si in the IGM by PI-SNe corresponds to an early inventory of MBHs that constitutes a fraction ~(4-8) × 10-5 of the total baryonic mass in the universe. This is comparable to the global mass budget of the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in present-day galaxies. The corresponding occurrence rates in each halo of ~105 Msun during the epoch of VMS formation at z gtrsim 15 are ~0.9 Gyr-1 for VMSs associated with PI-SNe and ~0.6 Gyr-1 for the concomitant more massive stars producing MBHs. These rates may be of use to studies of H2 dissociation and reionization and to models of SMBH formation.


Subject headings

galaxies: formation; intergalactic medium; nuclear reactions, nucleosynthesis, abundances


Dates

Issue 2 (2005 December 20)

Received 2005 June 17, accepted for publication 2005 September 1



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