Zero metallicity stellar sources and the reionization epoch

Abstract

We reconsider the problem of the cosmological reionization due to stellar sources. Using a method similar to that developed by Haiman & Loeb (1997), we investigate the effect of changing the stellar models and the stellar spectra adopted for deriving the ionizing photon production rate. In particular, we study the consequences of adopting zero metallicity stars, which is the natural choice for the first stellar populations. We construct young isochrones representative of Population III stars from existing sets of evolutionary models (Forieri 1982; Cassisi & Castellani 1993) and calculate a suitable library of zero metallicity model atmospheres. The number of ionizing photons emitted by such a zero metal population is about 40% higher than that produced by standard metal poor isochrones. We find that adopting suitable zero metallicity models modifies the reionization epoch. However the latter is still largely affected by current uncertainties in other important physical processes such as the efficiency of the star formation and the fraction of escaping UV photons.