Chemical enrichment in the carbon-enhanced damped Ly α system by population III supernovae

Abstract

We show that the recently observed elemental abundance pattern of the carbon-rich metal-poor damped Ly alpha (DLA) system is in excellent agreement with the nucleosynthesis yields of faint core-collapse supernovae of primordial stars. The observed abundance pattern is not consistent with the nucleosynthesis yields of pair-instability supernovae. The DLA abundance pattern is very similar to that of carbon-rich extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars, and the contributions from low-mass stars and/or binary effects should be very small in DLAs. This suggests that chemical enrichment by the first stars in the first galaxies is driven by core-collapse supernovae from similar to 20 to 50 M-circle dot stars and also supports the supernova scenario as the enrichment source of EMP stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.