{"paper":{"title":"Asymmetrical thermonuclear supernovae triggered by the tidal disruption of white dwarfs","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"Tidal disruptions of white dwarfs by intermediate-mass black holes can produce thermonuclear supernovae that appear highly asymmetrical depending on the viewing angle.","cross_cats":["astro-ph.SR"],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.HE","authors_text":"Luc Dessart, Pavan Vynatheya, R\\\"udiger Pakmor, Taeho Ryu","submitted_at":"2026-01-27T23:51:36Z","abstract_excerpt":"In a dense star cluster core, a tidal disruption event (TDE) of a white dwarf (WD) can occur if the WD passes within the tidal radius of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). Very close encounters cause extreme tidal compression in the WD, raising temperatures enough to induce runaway fusion and produce a thermonuclear supernova (SN). Using the hydrodynamics code AREPO augmented with a 55-isotope nuclear reaction network, we performed high-resolution simulations of the TDE of a $0.6$ Msun C/O WD by a $500$ Msun IMBH for different values of the scaled impact parameter $b$ (i.e., the ratio of "},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"We recover the typical rise times and peak luminosities of SNe Ia, but with an extremely strong viewing-angle dependence of both light curves and spectra. At nebular times, isolated strong emission lines like [Ca ii] λλ 7291, 7323 may appear both displaced and skewed by many 1000 km s^{-1}.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The hydrodynamics and nuclear network in AREPO accurately capture the tidal compression, heating, and partial burning without missing effects such as magnetic fields, general relativity, or resolution-dependent mixing that could alter the 56Ni yields and asymmetry for the explored impact parameters.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Tidal disruptions of 0.6 solar mass white dwarfs by 500 solar mass black holes can produce asymmetrical thermonuclear supernovae with 56Ni fractions from 1% to 82% depending on impact parameter and strong viewing-angle dependence in light curves and spectra.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Tidal disruptions of white dwarfs by intermediate-mass black holes can produce thermonuclear supernovae that appear highly asymmetrical depending on the viewing angle.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"62ca07ba4d8587854d379e76ff0194b580a26bd2ab52f62188ff4bedc1293cad"},"source":{"id":"2601.20133","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":"eb0085fa-367b-4cf1-b8f2-6e17693be6d9","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-16T10:18:47.007120Z","strongest_claim":"We recover the typical rise times and peak luminosities of SNe Ia, but with an extremely strong viewing-angle dependence of both light curves and spectra. At nebular times, isolated strong emission lines like [Ca ii] λλ 7291, 7323 may appear both displaced and skewed by many 1000 km s^{-1}.","one_line_summary":"Tidal disruptions of 0.6 solar mass white dwarfs by 500 solar mass black holes can produce asymmetrical thermonuclear supernovae with 56Ni fractions from 1% to 82% depending on impact parameter and strong viewing-angle dependence in light curves and spectra.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The hydrodynamics and nuclear network in AREPO accurately capture the tidal compression, heating, and partial burning without missing effects such as magnetic fields, general relativity, or resolution-dependent mixing that could alter the 56Ni yields and asymmetry for the explored impact parameters.","pith_extraction_headline":"Tidal disruptions of white dwarfs by intermediate-mass black holes can produce thermonuclear supernovae that appear highly asymmetrical depending on the viewing angle."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2601.20133/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":63,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2010,"title":"Althaus, L. G., Córsico, A. H., Isern, J., & García-Berro, E. 2010, A&A Rev., 18, 471","work_id":"01144710-a78c-47f2-9bc0-5d563bd7964b","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2013,"title":"G., Miller Bertolami, M","work_id":"de2dc637-fab6-4ea2-b3b4-1b754d85f654","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2004,"title":"2004, MNRAS, 348, 261","work_id":"6e24b564-1914-4e59-93df-bc28b1e620bb","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2015,"title":"Blondin, S., Dessart, L., & Hillier, D. J. 2015, MNRAS, 448, 2766","work_id":"b64762c4-b7b6-42c7-b583-bb07621dd1e6","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2013,"title":"J., & Khokhlov, A","work_id":"0046a50a-a041-4b0c-b564-914a190e4244","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":63,"snapshot_sha256":"b51c8532af98c33a8d41e0132d7b4bcfd1dadce883e4603f2a6dc7fbed2a5463","internal_anchors":1},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"0b9d25f30f6c03a6b002fcc50062cd0760abf3b9977dbda006ab6eaf6e36de0a"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}