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With the launch of JWST and other scheduled missions aimed at probing the distant universe, we are entering a new promising era for high- z astronomy. One of our main goals is the detection of the first population of stars (Population III or Pop III stars), and models suggest that Pop III star formation is allowed well into the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), rendering this an attainable achievement. In this paper, we focus on our chance of detecting massive Pop IIIs at the moment of their death as Pair-Instability Supernovae (PISNe). We estimate the probability of discovering PISNe during the EoR in galaxies with different stellar masses (7.5 ≤ Log(M ⋆/M⊙) ≤ 10.5) from six dustyGadget simulations of 50  h −1 cMpc per side. We further assess the expected number of PISNe in surveys with JWST/NIRCam and Roman/WFI. On average, less than one PISN is expected in all examined JWST fields at z ≃ 8 with Δ z  = 1, and O(1) PISN may be found in a ∼1 deg2 Roman field in the best-case scenario, although different assumptions on the Pop III IMF and/or Pop III star formation efficiency can decrease this number substantially. Including the contribution from unresolved low-mass haloes holds the potential for increased discoveries. JWST/NIRCam and Roman/WFI allow the detection of massive-progenitor (∼250 M⊙) PISNe throughout all the optimal F200W-F356W, F277W-F444W, and F158-F213 colours. PISNe are also pre-dominantly located at the outskirts of their hosting haloes, facilitating the disentangling of underlying stellar emission thanks to the spatial-resolution capabilities of the instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-metallicity very massive stars with an initial mass of ∼140– |$260\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| are expected to end their lives as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). The abundance pattern resulting from a PISN differs drastically from regular core-collapse supernova (CCSN) models and is expected to be seen in very metal-poor (VMP) stars of [Fe/H] ≲ −2. Despite the routine discovery of many VMP stars, the unique abundance pattern expected from PISNe has not been unambiguously detected. The recently discovered VMP star LAMOST J1010 + 2358, however, shows a peculiar abundance pattern that is remarkably well fit by a PISN, indicating the potential first discovery of a bonafide star born from gas polluted by a PISN. In this paper, we study the detailed nucleosynthesis in a large set of models of CCSN of Pop III and Pop II star of metallicity [Fe/H] = −3 with masses ranging from 12 to |$30\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$|⁠. We find that the observed abundance pattern in LAMOST J1010 + 2358 can be fit at least equally well by CCSN models of ∼12– |$14\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| that undergo negligible fallback following the explosion. The best-fitting CCSN models provide a fit that is even marginally better than the best-fitting PISN model. We conclude the measured abundance pattern in LAMOST J1010 + 2358 could have originated from a CCSN and therefore cannot be unambiguously identified with a PISN given the set of elements measured in it to date. We identify key elements that need to be measured in future detections in stars like LAMOST J1010 + 2358 that can differentiate between CCSN and PISN origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]