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Title: FINDING THE FIRST COSMIC EXPLOSIONS. II. CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6]
  1. Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States)
  2. T-2, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)
  3. CCS-2, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)
  4. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
  5. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)
  6. Enrico Fermi Institute, Department of Physics, and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)

Understanding the properties of Population III (Pop III) stars is prerequisite to elucidating the nature of primeval galaxies, the chemical enrichment and reionization of the early intergalactic medium, and the origin of supermassive black holes. While the primordial initial mass function (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 M{sub Sun} in addition to 50-500 M{sub Sun }. The detection of Pop III supernovae (SNe) by JWST, WFIRST, or the TMT could directly probe the primordial IMF for the first time. We present numerical simulations of 15-40 M{sub Sun} Pop III core-collapse SNe performed with the Los Alamos radiation hydrodynamics code RAGE. We find that they will be visible in the earliest galaxies out to z {approx} 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 SNe by next-generation NIR instruments will in general be limited to this epoch.

OSTI ID:
22126794
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 768, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English