English

Multi-wavelength Signatures of Supernova Shock Breakout from Red Supergiants in Two Dimensions

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2026-01-29 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We present new two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic simulations of supernova shock breakout from red supergiants using the CASTRO\texttt{CASTRO} code. Our progenitors are 20 and 25 M_{\odot} solar-metallicity stars evolved from the zero-age main sequence with MESA\texttt{MESA} and exploded in one dimension using FLASH\texttt{FLASH}. We consider a range of circumstellar media (CSM) produced by stellar winds to investigate how pre-explosion mass-loss affects shock breakout. The multigroup flux-limited diffusion scheme in CASTRO\texttt{CASTRO} captures the interaction between the explosion shock, its radiation precursor, and the surrounding CSM. We find that strong radiation precursors, generated by radiation leakage behind the shock, can drive fluid instabilities and move the effective photosphere outward before the shock reaches the stellar surface. The resulting breakout emissions reach peak luminosities of 1044{\sim}10^{44} erg s1^{-1} with full-width half-maximum durations of 1-3 hr, , fainter and longer than previous 1D models. The light-curve colors gradually evolve from blue to red after the peak. The 25 M_{\odot} model with explosion energy E1.69×1051E \sim 1.69\times10^{51} erg produces {\sim}10-30\% higher maximum luminosity than the 20 M_{\odot} model with E1.09×1051E \sim 1.09\times10^{51} erg. The dense CSM further extends the breakout rise time by increasing the photon diffusion. These results provide new constraints on red supergiant atmospheres and mass-loss histories prior to core collapse.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.08212,
  title  = {Multi-wavelength Signatures of Supernova Shock Breakout from Red Supergiants in Two Dimensions},
  author = {Wun-Yi Chen and Ke-Jung Chen and Keiichi Maeda and Masaomi Ono and Po-Sheng Ou and F. K. Roepke},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.08212},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in ApJ. 21 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables