Magnetic Fields and Angular Momentum in Population III Star Formation

We study the buildup of magnetic fields during the formation of Population III star-forming regions, by conducting magnetohydrodynamic cosmological simulations from realistic initial conditions and varying the Jeans resolution. We find that, while compression results in some amplification, turbulent velocity fluctuations driven by the collapse can further amplify an initially weak seed field via dynamo action, provided there is sufficient numerical resolution to capture vortical motions. We explore saturation of amplification of the magnetic field, which could potentially become dynamically important in subsequent, fully-resolved calculations. We have also identified a relatively surprising phenomena that is purely hydrodynamic: the higher-resolved simulations possess substantially different characteristics, suggesting the possibility that disk formation may be suppressed or delayed with increased hydrodynamic resolution.