The Chemical Signature of Primordial Hypernovae

The first massive stars to form after the big bang mark the departure from a chemically and structurally simple Universe, towards one of increasing richness and complexity. Exploding as supernovae, the first massive stars provided the Universe with the initial enrichment of the first significant amounts of carbon and heavier elements necessary to life. The first stars are not directly observable by current instruments, and their nature remains a mystery. In this thesis we investigate the nucleosynthesis that can be achieved with models of high energy supernova for the first stars, and make comparison with the chemical signature preserved in ancient metal-poor stars.