The Supersonic Project: The Early Evolutionary Path of Supersonically Induced Gas Objects

Supersonically induced gas objects (SIGOs) are a class of early universe objects that have gained attention as a potential formation route for globular clusters. SIGOs have recently begun to be studied in the context of molecular hydrogen cooling, which is key to characterizing their structure and evolution. Studying the population-level properties of SIGOs with molecular cooling is important for understanding their potential for collapse and star formation, and for addressing whether SIGOs can survive to the present epoch. Here, we investigate the evolution of SIGOs before they form stars, using a combination of numerical and analytical analysis. We study timescales important to the evolution of SIGOs at a population level in the presence of molecular cooling. Revising the previous formulation for the critical density of collapse for SIGOs allows us to show that their prolateness tends to act as an inhibiting factor to collapse. We find that simulated SIGOs are limited by artificial two-body relaxation effects that tend to disperse them. We expect that SIGOs in nature will be longer lived compared to our simulations. Further, the fall-back timescale on which SIGOs fall into nearby dark matter halos, potentially producing a globular-cluster-like system, is frequently longer than their cooling timescale and the collapse timescale on which they shrink through gravity. Therefore, some SIGOs have time to cool and collapse outside of halos despite initially failing to exceed the critical density. From this analysis we conclude that SIGOs should form stars outside of halos in nonnegligible stream velocity patches in the universe.

Automated summary

Supersonically induced gas objects (SIGOs) have gained attention as a potential formation route for globular clusters. Recent research has focused on studying SIGOs in the context of molecular hydrogen cooling to understand their structure, evolution, and the possibility of their survival to the present epoch. Analyzing the evolution of SIGOs before star formation, it is found that their prolateness inhibits collapse and they are limited by two-body relaxation effects. However, SIGOs have time to cool and collapse outside of halos, forming stars in nonnegligible stream velocity patches in the universe.