The radiation produced by stars (and some other objects such as accreting black holes) interacts with the gaseous matter in the universe. Since most matter is hydrogen (90% by number), often found in atomic form, the amount of radiation above 13.6 eV (1 Rydberg, the ionization energy of H) is an important property of stars. Such radiation, called extreme ultra-violet (EUV) radiation, is mostly produced by massive stars (more than ~ 10 solar masses). The first stars in the universe were most likely such very massive stars.
EUV radiation does two things to the gas.
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1.
It ionizes the H atoms turning the gas into a plasma of charged particles (H+ + e−).
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2.
It heats the gas using the excess photon energy above 1 Ry.
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Mellema, G. (2009). Photo-Ionization Dynamics Simulation. In: Engquist, B., Lötstedt, P., Runborg, O. (eds) Multiscale Modeling and Simulation in Science. Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, vol 66. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88857-4_10
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