Research Seminars @ Illinois

Understanding the formation and observational signatures of the first stars remains a central challenge in astronomy. In this seminar, I will present recent theoretical work connecting models of Population III (Pop III) star formation to observational constraints from the James Webb Space Telescope. I will discuss our interpretation of the recently observed strongly lensed source LAP1-B, which we argue is the first system consistent with theoretical predictions for Pop III stars, including formation in low-metallicity atomic cooling halos, a top-heavy initial mass function, and star formation occurring in relatively low-mass stellar clusters. Utilizing semianalytic models calibrated to hydrodynamic simulations, we show that the abundance of such systems is consistent with expectations. I will then present our predictions for the chemical signatures of Pop III star formation in high-redshift (z~6) damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs), exploring how early metal enrichment imprints distinctive abundance patterns that can be used to identify systems enriched by primordial stars and to infer the properties of Pop III stars and low-mass galaxies.