S. Bovino

ON THE RELATIVE ABUNDANCE OF LiH AND LiH+ MOLECULES IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE: NEW RESULTS FROM QUANTUM REACTIONS

The relative efficiencies of the chemical pathways that can lead to the destruction of LiH and LiH+ molecules, conjectured to be present in the primordial gas and to control molecular cooling processes in the gravitational collapse of the post-recombination era, are revisited by using accurate quantum calculations for the several reactions involved. The new rates are employed to survey the behavior of the relative abundance of these molecules at redshifts of interest for early universe conditions. We find significant differences with respect to previous calculations, the present ones yielding LiH abundances higher than LiH+ at all redshifts.

FAST LiH DESTRUCTION IN REACTION WITH H: QUANTUM CALCULATIONS AND ASTROPHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES

We present a quantum-mechanical study of the exothermic 7LiH reaction with H. Accurate reactive probabilities and rate coefficients are obtained by solving the Schrodinger equation for the motion of the three nuclei on a single Born-Oppenheimer potential energy surface and using a coupled-channel hyperspherical coordinate method. Our new rates indeed confirm earlier, qualitative predictions and some previous theoretical calculations, as discussed in the main text. In the astrophysical domain, we find that the depletion process largely dominates for redshift (z) between 400 and 100, a range significant for early universe models. This new result from first-principle calculations leads us to definitively surmise that LiH should be already destroyed when the survival processes become important. Because of this very rapid depletion reaction, the fractional abundance of LiH is found to be drastically reduced, so that it should be very difficult to manage to observe it as an imprinted species in the cosmic background radiation. The present findings appear to settle the question of LiH observability in the early universe. We further report several state-to-state computed reaction rates in the same range of temperatures of interest for the present problem.

THE TURBULENT DYNAMO IN HIGHLY COMPRESSIBLE SUPERSONIC PLASMAS

The turbulent dynamo may explain the origin of cosmic magnetism. While the exponential amplification of magnetic fields has been studied for incompressible gases, little is known about dynamo action in highly-compressible, supersonic plasmas, such as the interstellar medium of galaxies and the early Universe. Here we perform the first quantitative comparison of theoretical models of the dynamo growth rate and saturation level with three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical simulations of supersonic turbulence with grid resolutions of up to 1024^3 cells. We obtain numerical convergence and find that dynamo action occurs for both low and high magnetic Prandtl numbers Pm = nu/eta = 0.1-10 (the ratio of viscous to magnetic dissipation), which had so far only been seen for Pm >= 1 in supersonic turbulence. We measure the critical magnetic Reynolds number, Rm_crit = 129 (+43, -31), showing that the compressible dynamo is almost as efficient as in incompressible gas. Considering the physical conditions of the present and early Universe, we conclude that magnetic fields need to be taken into account during structure formation from the early to the present cosmic ages, because they suppress gas fragmentation and drive powerful jets and outflows, both greatly affecting the initial mass function of stars.

Ion chemistry in the early universe - Revisiting the role of HeH+ with new quantum calculations

Aims. The role of HeH + has been newly assessed with the aid of newly calculated rates which use entirely ab initio methods, thereby allowing us to compute more accurately the relevant abundances within the global chemical network of the early universe. A comparison with the similar role of the ionic molecule LiH + is also presented. Methods. Quantum calculations have been carried out for the gas-phase reaction of HeH + with H atoms with our new in-house code, based on the negative imaginary potential method. Integral cross sections and reactive rate coeffi cients obtained under the general conditions of early universe chemistry are presented and discussed. Results. With the new reaction rate, the abundance of HeH + in the early universe is more than one order of magnitude larger than in previous studies. Our more accurate findings further buttre ss the possibility to detect cosmological signatures of HeH + .

Saturation of the turbulent dynamo

The origin of strong magnetic fields in the Universe can be explained by amplifying weak seed fields via turbulent motions on small spatial scales and subsequently transporting the magnetic energy to larger scales. This process is known as the turbulent dynamo and depends on the properties of turbulence, i.e., on the hydrodynamical Reynolds number and the compressibility of the gas, and on the magnetic diffusivity. While we know the growth rate of the magnetic energy in the linear regime, the saturation level, i.e., the ratio of magnetic energy to turbulent kinetic energy that can be reached, is not known from analytical calculations. In this paper we present a scale-dependent saturation model based on an effective turbulent resistivity which is determined by the turnover time scale of turbulent eddies and the magnetic energy density. The magnetic resistivity increases compared to the Spitzer value and the effective scale on which the magnetic energy spectrum is at its maximum moves to larger spatial scales. This process ends when the peak reaches a characteristic wave number k☆ which is determined by the critical magnetic Reynolds number. The saturation level of the dynamo also depends on the type of turbulence and differs for the limits of large and small magnetic Prandtl numbers Pm. With our model we find saturation levels between 43.8% and 1.3% for Pm≫1 and between 2.43% and 0.135% for Pm≪1, where the higher values refer to incompressible turbulence and the lower ones to highly compressible turbulence.

Impact of an accurate modelling of primordial chemistry in high-resolution studies

The formation of the first stars in the Universe is regulated by a sensitive interplay of chemistry and cooling with the dynamics of a self-gravitating system. As the outcome of the collapse and the final stellar masses depend sensitively on the thermal evolution, it is necessary to accurately model the thermal evolution in high-resolution simulations. As previous investigations raised doubts regarding the convergence of the temperature at high resolution, we investigate the role of the numerical method employed to model the chemistry and the thermodynamics. Here we compare the standard implementation in the adaptive-mesh refinement code ENZO, employing a first-order backward differentiation formula (BDF), with the fifth-order accurate BDF solver DLSODES. While the standard implementation in ENZO shows a strong dependence on the employed resolution, the results obtained with DLSODES are considerably more robust, both with respect to the chemistry and thermodynamics, but also for dynamical quantities such as density, total energy or the accretion rate. We conclude that an accurate modelling of the chemistry and thermodynamics is central for primordial star formation.

The Ionic Pathways of Lithium Chemistry in the Early Universe: Quantum Calculations for LiH+ Reacting with H

To better understand the overall role of lithium chemistry in the early universe, reactive quantum calculations involving LiH+ have been carried out and rate coefficients have been obtained. The reactive quantum calculations have been performed using a negative imaginary potential method. Infinite-order sudden approximation and the coupled state approximation have been used to simplify the angular coupling dynamics. Rate coefficients are obtained from the reactive cross sections by further integration over Boltzmann distribution of velocities. The results from the present calculations suggest that, at low redshifts (z), LiH+ should be amenable to observation as imprinted on the cosmic background radiation, in contrast with its neutral counterpart. At higher z, the ionic species may disappear through both depletion reaction and three-body break-up processes.

Small-scale dynamo at low magnetic Prandtl numbers.

The present-day Universe is highly magnetized, even though the first magnetic seed fields were most probably extremely weak. To explain the growth of the magnetic field strength over many orders of magnitude, fast amplification processes need to operate. The most efficient mechanism known today is the small-scale dynamo, which converts turbulent kinetic energy into magnetic energy leading to an exponential growth of the magnetic field. The efficiency of the dynamo depends on the type of turbulence indicated by the slope of the turbulence spectrum v(ℓ)∝ℓ^{ϑ}, where v(ℓ) is the eddy velocity at a scale ℓ. We explore turbulent spectra ranging from incompressible Kolmogorov turbulence with ϑ=1/3 to highly compressible Burgers turbulence with ϑ=1/2. In this work, we analyze the properties of the small-scale dynamo for low magnetic Prandtl numbers Pm, which denotes the ratio of the magnetic Reynolds number, Rm, to the hydrodynamical one, Re. We solve the Kazantsev equation, which describes the evolution of the small-scale magnetic field, using the WKB approximation. In the limit of low magnetic Prandtl numbers, the growth rate is proportional to Rm^{(1-ϑ)/(1+ϑ)}. We furthermore discuss the critical magnetic Reynolds number Rm_{crit}, which is required for small-scale dynamo action. The value of Rm_{crit} is roughly 100 for Kolmogorov turbulence and 2700 for Burgers. Furthermore, we discuss that Rm_{crit} provides a stronger constraint in the limit of low Pm than it does for large Pm. We conclude that the small-scale dynamo can operate in the regime of low magnetic Prandtl numbers if the magnetic Reynolds number is large enough. Thus, the magnetic field amplification on small scales can take place in a broad range of physical environments and amplify week magnetic seed fields on short time scales.

IS H+ AN EFFICIENT DESTROYER OF LiH MOLECULES? A QUANTUM INVESTIGATION AT EARLY UNIVERSE CONDITIONS

Quantum reactive calculations, under the general conditions of early universe chemistry, are carried out for the reaction of H+ ions, expected to be abundant projectiles at those redshift values, with LiH molecules (ν = 0). The results indicate that the outgoing flux, due to the special kinematics induced by the exothermic potential energy surface, is mostly distributed into the LiH survival channels of the fast exothermic reaction. The final, ab initio destruction rates, which are forming H+ 2, are found however to be larger than previous estimates and to exhibit little dependence on LiH internal vibrational energy. The consequences of such findings on the broader network of early universe reactions involving Li-containing molecules will be discussed from an analysis of these newly obtained quantum reaction rates.

A detailed framework to incorporate dust in hydrodynamical simulations

Dust plays a key role in the evolution of the ISM and its correct modelling in numerical simulations is therefore fundamental. We present a new and self-consistent model that treats grain thermal coupling with the gas, radiation balance, and surface chemistry for molecular hydrogen. This method can be applied to any dust distribution with an arbitrary number of grain types without affecting the overall computational cost. In this paper we describe in detail the physics and the algorithm behind our approach, and in order to test the methodology, we present some examples of astrophysical interest, namely (i) a one-zone collapse with complete gas chemistry and thermochemical processes, (ii) a 3D model of a low-metallicity collapse of a minihalo starting from cosmological initial conditions, and (iii) a turbulent molecular cloud with H-C-O chemistry (277 reactions), together with self-consistent cooling and heating solved on the fly. Although these examples employ the publicly available code KROME, our approach can be easily integrated into any computational framework.