Signatures of exploding supermassive PopIII stars at high redshift in <i>JWST, EUCLID</i> , and <i>Roman Space Telescope</i>

ABSTRACT Recently discovered supermassive black holes with masses of $\sim 10^8\, \mathrm{ M}_\odot$ at redshifts $z\sim 9$–11 in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) pose severe challenges to our understanding of supermassive black hole formation. One proposed channel are rapidly accreting supermassive PopIII stars (SMSs) that form in large primordial gas haloes and grow up to $&amp;lt; 10^6\, {\rm {M}}_\odot$. They eventually collapse due to the general relativistic instability and could lead to supernova-like explosions. This releases massive and energetic ejecta that then interact with the halo medium via an optically thick shock. We develop a semi-analytic model to compute the shock properties, bolometric luminosity, emission spectrum, and photometry over time. The initial data are informed by stellar evolution and general relativistic SMS collapse simulations. We find that SMS explosion light curves reach a brightness $\sim 10^{45\mathrm{-}47}\, \mathrm{erg\,s^{-1}}$ and last 10–200 yr in the source frame – up to 250–3000 yr with cosmic time dilation. This makes them quasi-persistent sources which vary indistinguishably to little red dots and AGN within 0.5–$9\, (1+z)$ yr. Bright SMS explosions are observable in long-wavelength JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) filters up to $z\le 20$ (24–26 mag) and pulsating SMSs up to $z\le 15$. EUCLID and the Roman Space Telescope (RST) can detect SMS explosions at $z&amp;lt; 11$–12. Their deep fields could constrain the SMS rate down to $10^{-11}$Mpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$, which is much deeper than JWST bounds. Based on cosmological simulations and observed star formation rates, we expect to image up to several hundred SMS explosions with EUCLID and dozens with RST deep fields.