The two promising scenarios to explode core collapse supernovae

Abstract

I compare to each other what I consider to be the two most promising scenarios to explode core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). Both are based on the negative jet feedback mechanism (JFM). In the jittering jets scenario a collapsing core of a single slowly-rotating star can launch jets. The accretion disk or belt (a sub-Keplerian accretion flow concentrated toward the equatorial plane) that launches the jets is intermittent with varying directions of the axis. Instabilities, such as the standing accretion shock instability (SASI), lead to stochastic angular momentum variations that allow the formation of the intermittent accretion disk/belt. According to this scenario no failed CCSNe exist. According to the fixed axis scenario, the core of the progenitor star must be spun up during its late evolutionary phases, and hence all CCSNe are descendants of strongly interacting binary systems, most likely through a common envelope evolution (whether the companion survives or not). Due to the strong binary interaction, the axis of the accretion disk that is formed around the newly born neutron star has a more or less fixed direction. According to the fixed axis scenario, accretion disk/belt are not formed around the newly born neutron star of single stars; they rather end in failed CCSNe. I also raise the possibility that the jittering jets scenario operates for progenitors with initial mass of 8Mo 18Mo. For the first time these two scenarios are compared to each other, as well as to some aspects of neutrino-driven explosion mechanism. These new comparisons further suggest that the JFM plays a major role in exploding massive stars.