Abstract

Radiative feedback produced by stellar populations played a vital role in early structure formation. In particular, photons below the Lyman limit can escape the star-forming regions and produce a background ultraviolet (UV) flux, which consequently may influence the pristine halos far away from the radiation sources. These photons can quench the formation of molecular hydrogen by photodetachment of H-. In this study, we explore the impact of such UV radiation on fragmentation in massive primordial halos of a few times 10(7) M-circle dot. To accomplish this goal, we perform high resolution cosmological simulations for two distinct halos and vary the strength of the impinging background UV field in units of J(21) assuming a blackbody radiation spectrum with a characteristic temperature of T-rad = 10(4) K. We further make use of sink particles to follow the evolution for 10,000 yr after reaching the maximum refinement level. No vigorous fragmentation is observed in UV-illuminated halos while the accretion rate changes according to the thermal properties. Our findings show that a few 10(2)-10(4) solar mass protostars are formed when halos are irradiated by J(21) = 10-500 at z > 10 and suggest a strong relation between the strength of the UV flux and mass of a protostar. This mode of star formation is quite different from minihalos, as higher accretion rates of about 0.01-0.1 M-circle dot yr(-1) are observed by the end of our simulations. The resulting massive stars are potential cradles for the formation of intermediate-mass black holes at earlier cosmic times and contribute to the formation of a global X-ray background.