The most massive core collapse supernova progenitors

Abstract

The discovery of the extremely luminous supernova SN 2006gy, possibly interpreted as a pair instability supernova, renewed the interest in very massive stars. We explore the evolution of these objects, which end their life as pair instability supernovae or as core collapse supernovae with relatively massive iron cores, up to about $3 M_\odot$.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, ApJ accepte