Searches for Population III pair-instability supernovae: Predictions for ULTIMATE-Subaru and WFIRST

Abstract

ULTIMATE-Subaru (Ultra-wide Laser Tomographic Imager and MOS with AO for Transcendent Exploration on Subaru) and WFIRST (Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope) are the next generation of near-infrared instruments that have a large field-of-view. They allow us to conduct deep and wide transient surveys in the near-infrared. Such a near-infrared transient survey enables us to find very distant supernovae that are redshifted to the near-infrared wavelengths. We have performed mock transient surveys with ULTIMATE-Subaru and WFIRST to investigate their ability to discover Population III pair-instability supernovae. We found that a five-year 1 deg(2) K-band transient survey with a point-source limiting magnitude of 26.5 mag with ULTIMATE-Subaru may find about two Population III pair-instability supernovae beyond the redshift of 6. A five-year 10 deg(2) survey with WFIRST reaching 26.5 mag in the F184 band may find about seven Population III pair-instability supernovae beyond the redshift of 6. We also find that the expected numbers of the Population III pair-instability supernova detections increase by about a factor of 2 if the near-infrared transient surveys are performed towards clusters of galaxies. Other supernovae, such as Population II pair-instability supernovae, would also be detected in the same survey. This study demonstrates that these future wide-field near-infrared instruments allow us to investigate the explosions of first-generation supernovae by performing deep and wide near-infrared transient surveys.