The Imprint of Core-collapse Asymmetries on Supernova Shock Breakout
Abstract
Shock breakout is the first electromagnetic signal of a supernova, generating a highly luminous and fast-timescale burst of thermal radiation. Motivated by recent theoretical progress in producing successful three-dimensional supernova explosions of massive stars, we undertake a detailed numerical study on the impact that the core-collapse asymmetries might have on the breakout signal. We perform the first fully 3D multi-group radiation hydrodynamics simulations of shock breakout for the case of a red supergiant explosion. We find that large-scale asymmetries formed during the core-collapse process can extend the breakout flash duration to days, with the timescale set by the supernova shock fully wrapping around the progenitor star. Using detailed 3D radiative transfer post-processing, we generate synthetic multi-wavelength light curves and spectra to more closely connect to observations. The light curves show a significant viewing-angle dependence of the overall shape and peak brightness of shock breakout. We find that core-collapse asymmetries have the largest impact on the breakout light curve when observed in shorter UV wavelengths. On the other hand, at optical wavelengths, we find a diminished impact of the asymmetric breakout that more closely resembles a 1D spherical breakout. Our results show how multi-dimensional effects originating from the core-collapse mechanism can play a major role in setting the shock breakout properties, and are particularly relevant to upcoming UV space missions such as ULTRASAT and UVEX.
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BibTeX
@misc{khatami2026imprint,
title = {{The Imprint of Core-collapse Asymmetries on Supernova Shock Breakout}},
author = {David K. Khatami and David Vartanyan and Hai P. Le and Daniel N. Kasen and Adam Burrows},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.27183},
eprint = {2610.27183},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.27183},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Imprint of Core-collapse Asymmetries on Supernova Shock Breakout
AU - David K. Khatami
AU - David Vartanyan
AU - Hai P. Le
AU - Daniel N. Kasen
AU - Adam Burrows
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.27183
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.27183
AB - Shock breakout is the first electromagnetic signal of a supernova, generating a highly luminous and fast-timescale burst of thermal radiation. Motivated by recent theoretical progress in producing successful three-dimensional supernova explosions of massive stars, we undertake a detailed numerical study on the impact that the core-collapse asymmetries might have on the breakout signal. We perform the first fully 3D multi-group radiation hydrodynamics simulations of shock breakout for the case of a red supergiant explosion. We find that large-scale asymmetries formed during the core-collapse process can extend the breakout flash duration to days, with the timescale set by the supernova shock fully wrapping around the progenitor star. Using detailed 3D radiative transfer post-processing, we generate synthetic multi-wavelength light curves and spectra to more closely connect to observations. The light curves show a significant viewing-angle dependence of the overall shape and peak brightness of shock breakout. We find that core-collapse asymmetries have the largest impact on the breakout light curve when observed in shorter UV wavelengths. On the other hand, at optical wavelengths, we find a diminished impact of the asymmetric breakout that more closely resembles a 1D spherical breakout. Our results show how multi-dimensional effects originating from the core-collapse mechanism can play a major role in setting the shock breakout properties, and are particularly relevant to upcoming UV space missions such as ULTRASAT and UVEX.
ER -