Related papers: On the Pair-Instability Supernova origin of J1010+…
Some ancient, dim, metal-poor stars may have formed in the ashes of the first supernovae (SNe). If their chemical abundances can be reconciled with the elemental yields of specific Population III (Pop III) explosions, they could reveal the…
We present a novel approach aimed at identifying the key chemical elements to search for the (missing) descendants of very massive first stars exploding as Pair Instability Supernovae (PISN). Our simple and general method consists in a…
Stars formed with initial mass over 50 Msun are very rare today, but they are thought to be more common in the early universe. The fates of those early, metal-poor, massive stars are highly uncertain. Most are expected to directly collapse…
The observational signatures of the first cosmic explosions and their chemical imprint on second-generation stars both crucially depend on how heavy elements mix within the star at the earliest stages of the blast. We present numerical…
The very massive first stars ($m>100\rm M_{\odot}$) were fundamental to the early phases of reionization, metal enrichment, and super-massive black hole formation. Among them, those with $140\leq\rm m/\rm M_{\odot}\leq260$ are predicted to…
Near-solar metallicity (and low-redshift) Pair-Instability Supernova (PISN) candidates challenge stellar evolution models. Indeed, at such a metallicity, even an initially very massive star generally loses so much mass by stellar winds that…
If very massive stars (M >~ 100 Msun) can form and avoid too strong mass loss during their evolution, they are predicted to explode as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). One critical test for candidate events is whether their…
Population III stars that die as pair-instability supernovae are usually thought to fall in the mass range of 140 - 260 M$_{\odot}$. But several lines of work have now shown that rotation can build up the He cores needed to encounter the…
The discovery of 150 - 300 M$_{\odot}$ stars in the Local Group and pair-instability supernova candidates at low redshifts has excited interest in this exotic explosion mechanism. Realistic light curves for pair-instability supernovae at…
Stars with helium cores between ~64 and 133 M_sun are theoretically predicted to die as pair-instability supernovae. This requires very massive progenitors, which are theoretically prohibited for Pop II/I stars within the Galactic stellar…
We report on the chemical composition of the very metal-poor ([Fe/H]=-2.9) star LAMOST J1645+4357 that is identified to be a red giant having peculiar abundance ratios by Li et al. (2022). The standard abundance analysis is carried out for…
So called superluminous supernovae have been recently discovered in the local Universe. It appears possible that some of them originate from stellar explosions induced by the pair instability mechanism. Recent stellar evolution models also…
Pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) have long been predicted to be the final fates of near-zero-metallicity very massive stars ($Z < Z_\odot/3$, $\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{ZAMS} \gtrsim 140 \mathrm{M}_\odot$). However, no definite PISN has been…
Population III (Pop III) stars formed out of metal free gas in minihalos at $z>20$. While their ignition ended the Dark Ages and begin enrichment of the IGM, their mass distribution remains unconstrained. To date, no confirmed Pop III star…
The first stars are the key to the formation of primitive galaxies, early cosmological reionization and chemical enrichment, and the origin of supermassive black holes. Unfortunately, in spite of their extreme luminosities, individual…
The most iron-deficient stars in the Milky Way provide important observational constraints on the nature of astrophysical objects that have enriched the primordial gas with heavy elements from which these stars were formed. Among them, the…
We recently determined the mass of the most massive star known to the date, R136a1 with a mass at birth 320 times the mass of our sun, as well as the mass of several other stars that are more massive than 150 M. Such massive stars (~150-300…
The search for Population III (Pop III) stars has fascinated and eluded astrophysicists for decades. One promising place for capturing evidence of their presence must be high-redshift objects; signatures should be recorded in their…
We calculate nucleosynthesis in core-collapse explosions of massive Pop III stars, and compare the results with abundances of metal-poor halo stars to constrain the parameters of Pop III supernovae. We focus on iron-peak elements and, in…
We investigate the effect of the population III (Pop III) stars supernova explosion~(SN) on the high redshifts reionization history using the latest Planck data. It is predicted that massive Pop~III stars~($130M_\odot\leq M\leq 270M_\odot$)…