It's my understanding the general mechanism of core collapse involves the adiabatic constant of the material, gamma. This is the exponent in the relation P V^(gamma) = constant.
For a normal, non-relativistic gas in which the particles have no internal degrees of freedom, gamma is 5/3. As a gas becomes more relativistic, and as photon pressure becomes more important, gamma declines toward 4/3.
For gamma = 4/3, a self-gravitating gas will be marginally stable: the energy needed to compress a sphere of the gas will be equal to the gravitational potential energy liberated by the compression. So, any effect that pushes gamma below 4/3 makes it unstable against collapse.
In a conventional core collapse SN this is photodissociation of nuclei, where energy gets soaked up in breaking apart nuclei into alpha particles and then free nucleons. In a pair-instability SN, this is increasing conversion of photons to electron-positron pairs.
The temperature involved for this is well above that needed for production of electron-positron pairs, so one may ask why that doesn't happen. I think it's because the cores of such stars are dense enough the electrons are degenerate, and there simply isn't "room" for new electrons to be added at an energy that would make pair production possible.
BTW, I don't think largeness is needed for photodisintegration to occur; this should happen even in garden variety type-II SN.
I just want to live long enough for space telescopes to evolve exponentially to observe kilonovas in the visual spectrum
I mean laser interferometers are an amazing advancement but just imagine seeing an earth-sized chunk of gold pop out of a kilonova (probably not my lifetime but eventually a human will see it happen)
Thank goodness this administration did not frack with Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, I thought the name alone would make them cancel it or rename it after him, wait maybe I shouldn't even mention that idea...
Check out the aragoscope [1]. It's not planned, but we would already have the technology as it doesn't rely on fragile and heavy lenses to be sent in orbit.
If you look at image 17 you can see that a simulated aragoscope that is in our technical reach could already resolve the Jupiter moons from almost 23 light years away. I hope as well that we will have something comparable while I am still around.
That’s what Singer’s civilization wants you to think before they send a Photoid or Dual-Vector foil (but later would require a supervisor’s approval which is a PITA)
Pair-instability can only happen in low-metalicity surroundings.
The big bang created hydrogen, helium, and small amounts of lithium. Any higher elements are created by stars, and a significant presence of those "metals" will take a star down a different path than pair-instability.
Low-metalicity environments are not likely to be friendly to life.
I like to think there's a solid argument against dark forest that even if you can destroy other intelligent systems, then hidden intelligent cautious systems may exist and see evidence of what you've done, so there's a potential consequence to destroying every intelligent system you identify.
And then also (maybe this is absurd) isn't there something intrinsic in intelligence to want to avoid conflict and desire peace?
Once a civilization reaches a certain tech level, it can do interstellar travel & by the time you find about it due to light speed delay, it might be far too late to strike - not to mention what size & tech level they might be by the point your first strike wave arrives given the time scales of sub light travel.
So it might be better to use the tried and tested terrestrial nuclear MAD doctrine & rather doe careful diplomacy with any newcomers, like a bunch of psychos each having a full arsenal of planet killing weapons (because that's what any sufficiently advanced civilization is).
In short - rather than Dark Forrest I imagine a harmonious if not utopic galaxy teaming with varied life that is on the first glance peaceful and cooperating.
With the occasional bunch of start systems evaporating once in a while, but we don't talk about those.
A more powerful hidden intelligent system will probably fear a medium power intelligent civlization that sets out to destroy "newcomers" as a civilization that might cause their destruction so the best course of action would be to destroy the medium power one before they become as powerful.
Once multiple destructions have occured, every sentient party capable of becoming aware will fear the others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair-instability_supernova