Constraint on the event rate of general relativistic instability supernovae from the early JWST deep field data

TL;DR

This study uses early JWST deep field data to search for and constrain the rate of general relativistic instability supernovae at high redshifts, finding no such sources and setting an upper limit on their occurrence.

Contribution

First observational constraint on the rate of relativistic instability supernovae at redshifts 10-15 using JWST data.

Findings

No candidate supernovae detected in the data.

Upper limit on supernova rate is approximately 8×10^-7 Mpc^-3 yr^-1.

Results provide the first observational constraint on these supernovae.

Abstract

General relativistic instability supernovae at ~10 < z < ~15 are predicted to be observed as red faint point sources, and they can be detected only in the reddest filters in JWST/NIRCam (F444W and F356W). They should be observed as persistent point sources with little flux variations for a couple of decades because of time dilation. We search for static point sources detected only in the F444W filter or only in the F444W and F356W filters in the early JWST deep field data. No real point source of such kind is identified. Therefore, the general relativistic instability supernova rate at ~10 < z < ~15 is constrained to be less than ~ 8e-7 Mpc-3 yr-1 for the first time.