Finding the First Cosmic Explosions II: Core-Collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper presents numerical simulations of 15-40 solar mass Pop III core-collapse supernovae, demonstrating their potential observability at high redshifts (z ~ 10-15) with upcoming telescopes, aiding understanding of early star formation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed radiation hydrodynamics simulations of 15-40 solar mass Pop III core-collapse supernovae and assesses their detectability with future telescopes.

Findings

Pop III supernovae can be visible up to z ~ 10-15.

Simulations show their potential to trace early star formation.

Detection of Type II supernovae at high redshift is feasible with next-generation instruments.

Abstract

Understanding the properties of Pop III stars is prerequisite to elucidating the nature of primeval galaxies, the chemical enrichment and reionization of the early IGM, and the origin of supermassive black holes. While the primordial IMF remains unknown, recent evidence from numerical simulations and stellar archaeology suggests that some Pop III stars may have had lower masses than previously thought, 15 - 50 \Ms in addition to 50 - 500 \Ms. The detection of Pop III supernovae by JWST, WFIRST or the TMT could directly probe the primordial IMF for the first time. We present numerical simulations of 15 - 40 \Ms Pop III core-collapse SNe done with the Los Alamos radiation hydrodynamics code RAGE. We find that they will be visible in the earliest galaxies out to z ~ 10 - 15, tracing their star formation rates and in some cases revealing their positions on the sky. Since the central engines of Pop III and solar-metallicity core-collapse SNe are quite similar, future detection of any Type II supernovae by next-generation NIR instruments will in general be limited to this epoch.