Black hole mergers put limits on star-destroying supernovae - Ars Technica

This page discusses a recent study on black hole mergers analyzing gravitational wave detector data. Researchers found a "mass gap" in the detected black hole population, supporting the theory that extremely massive stars undergo pair-instability supernovae—so violent they leave nothing behind. In massive stellar cores, photon density becomes so high that their energy spontaneously converts into electron-positron pairs. Since photons are crucial for preventing core contraction, this conversion triggers an extremely violent explosion that completely destroys the star, leaving no black hole formation possible in this mass range.