Stellar Yields of Rotating First Stars. II. Pair Instability Supernovae and Comparison with Observations

TL;DR

This study investigates the nucleosynthesis yields of pair instability supernovae from rotating and non-rotating first stars, comparing theoretical predictions with metal-poor star observations to identify potential PISN signatures.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic comparison of PISN yields from rotating and non-rotating progenitors with observed metal-poor star abundances.

Findings

No observed metal-poor stars match PISN abundance predictions.

Rotating models produce more nitrogen, but yields are otherwise similar.

Key abundance ratios can distinguish PISN signatures from other sources.

Abstract

Recent theory predicts that a first star is born with a massive initial mass of $\gtrsim$ 100 $M_\odot$. Pair instability supernova (PISN) is a common fate for such a massive star. Our final goal is to prove the existence of PISN and thus the high mass nature of the initial mass function in the early universe by conducting {\it abundance profiling}, in which properties of a hypothetical first star is constrained by metal-poor star abundances. In order to determine reliable and useful abundances, we investigate the PISN nucleosynthesis taking both rotating and non-rotating progenitors for the first time. We show that the initial and CO core mass ranges for PISNe depend on the envelope structures: non-magnetic rotating models developing inflated envelopes have a lower-shifted CO mass range of $\sim$ 70--125 $M_\odot$, while non-rotating and magnetic rotating models with deflated envelopes have a range of $\sim$ 80--135 $M_\odot$. However, we find no significant difference in explosive yields from rotating and non-rotating progenitors, except for large nitrogen production in non-magnetic rotating models. Furthermore, we conduct the first systematic comparison between theoretical yields and a large sample of metal-poor star abundances. We find that the predicted low [Na/Mg] $\sim$ $-1.5$ and high [Ca/Mg] $\sim$ $0.5$--$1.3$ abundance ratios are the most important to discriminate PISN signatures from normal metal-poor star abundances, and confirm that no currently observed metal-poor star matches with the PISN abundance. Extensive discussion on the non-detection is finally made.