We discuss a new scenario for the production of SNII explosion and present the results of numerical modelling studies of SNe II light curves which are being done in our group.

Exploding Neutron Star

The outburst of SN1987A has given a powerful impetus for theoretical work on the physical mechanism of supernova explosions. The one-dimensional theory of the SN mechanism has met certain difficulties in explaining the SN II explosion (see, e.g. Imshennik 1992a). Multidimensional effects might be required to resurrect the delayed explosion mechanism (Bethe & Wilson 1985), owing to neutrino heating (see contributions by Burrows 1993 and Janka 1993). Hillebrandt et al. (1990) have remarked that we may have to invent complicated scenarios in order to account for the explosions of massive stars, M = 20M⊙. We discuss here a bizarre scenario proposed by Imshennik (1992b), where the interested reader can find further details. Here we give only a brief sketch of the main idea and report on the present status of the project.

In the suggested scenario (Imshennik 1992b), the decisive role is played by the rotation of a presupernova core. The idea to connect an SN explosion with the fission instability in a rapidly rotating collapsing star was first put forward by von Weizsäcker (1947). Shklovsky (1970) had also pointed out the possible importance of the rotational instability for type II SNe. Those ideas were expressed in quite general form.