General Relativistic Instability Supernova of a Supermassive Population
  III Star
  The formation of supermassive Population III stars with masses $\gtrsim$
10,000 Msun in primeval galaxies in strong UV backgrounds at $z \sim$ 15 may be
the most viable pathway to the formation of supermassive black holes by $z
\sim$ 7. Most of these stars are expected to live for short times and then
directly collapse to black holes, with little or no mass loss over their lives.
But we have now discovered that non-rotating primordial stars with masses close
to 55,000 Msun can instead die as highly energetic thermonuclear supernovae
powered by explosive helium burning, releasing up to 10$ ^{55}$ erg, or about
10,000 times the energy of a Type Ia supernova. The explosion is triggered by
the general relativistic contribution of thermal photons to gravity in the core
of the star, which causes the core to contract and explosively burn. The energy
release completely unbinds the star, leaving no compact remnant, and about half
of the mass of the star is ejected into the early cosmos in the form of heavy
elements. The explosion would be visible in the near infrared at $z \lesssim$
20 to {\it Euclid} and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST),
perhaps signaling the birth of supermassive black hole seeds and the first
quasars.
