Asphericity in Supernova Explosions from Late-Time Spectroscopy

Understand

Core-collapse supernovae (CC-SNe) are the explosions that announce the death of massive stars.

• Some CC-SNe are linked to long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and are highly aspherical.
• One important question is to what extent asphericity is common to all CC-SNe.
• Here we present late-time spectra for a number of CC-SNe from stripped-envelope stars, and use them to explore any asphericity generated in the inner part of the exploding star, near the site of collapse.