Assessing the Observability of Hypernovae and Pair-Instability
  Supernovae in the Early Universe
  The era of the universe's first (Population III) stars is essentially
unconstrained by observation. Ultra-luminous and massive stars from this time
altered the chemistry of the cosmos, provided the radiative scaffolding to
support the formation of the first protogalaxies, and facilitated the creation
and growth of now-supermassive black holes. Unfortunately, because these stars
lie literally at the edge of the observable universe, they will remain beyond
the reach of even the next generation of telescopes such as the James Webb
Space Telescope and the Thirty-Meter Telescope. In this paper, we provide a
primer to supernovae modeling and the first stars to make our discussion
accessible to those new to or outside our field. We review recent work of the
Los Alamos Supernova Light Curve Project and Brigham Young University to
explore the possibility of probing this era through observations of the
spectacular deaths of the first stars. We find that many such brilliant
supernova explosions will be observable as far back as $\sim 99$% of the
universe's current age, tracing primordial star formation rates and the
locations of their protogalaxies on the sky. The observation of Population III
supernovae will be among the most spectacular discoveries in observational
astronomy in the coming decade.
