Finding Early Supernovae at 5 $< z <$ 12 with Frontier Fields

TL;DR

This paper explores how gravitational lensing in the Frontier Fields can enable the detection of early supernovae at high redshifts (z=5-12), providing insights into early star properties and cosmic star formation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Frontier Fields can discover dozens of supernovae at high redshifts and predicts future JWST surveys could find hundreds, advancing early universe studies.

Findings

Frontier Fields can detect dozens of supernovae at z=5-12.

Future JWST surveys could find hundreds of supernovae up to z~17.

Early supernovae can inform on star masses and cosmic star formation rates.

Abstract

Supernovae are important probes of the properties of stars at high redshifts because they can be detected at early epochs and their masses can be inferred from their light curves. Direct detection of the first cosmic explosions in the universe will only be possible with JWST, WFIRST and the next generation of extremely large telescopes. But strong gravitational lensing by massive clusters, like those in the Frontier Fields, could reveal supernovae at slightly lower redshifts now by magnifying their flux by factors of 10 or more. We find that Frontier Fields will likely discover dozens of core-collapse supernovae at 5 $ < z <$ 12. Future surveys of cluster lenses similar in scope to Frontier Fields by JWST might find hundreds of these events out to $z \sim$ 15 - 17. Besides revealing the masses of early stars, these ancient supernovae could also constrain cosmic star formation rates in the era of first galaxy formation.