Three-Dimensional Simulation of a Rotating Core-Collapse Supernova

Multi-dimensionality in the inner working of core-collapse supernovae has long been considered one of the most important ingredients to understand the explosion mechanism. We perform a series of numerical experiments to explore how rotation impacts the 3-dimensional hydrodynamics of core-collapse supernova. We employ a light-bulb scheme to trigger explosions and a three-species neutrino leakage scheme to treat deleptonization effects and neutrino losses from the neutron star interior. We find that the rotation can help the onset of neutrino-driven explosions for models in which the initial angular momentum is matched to that obtained from recent stellar evolutionary calculations ( at the center). For models with larger initial angular momenta, a shock surface deforms to be oblate due to larger centrifugal force. This makes a gain region, in which matter gains energy from neutrinos, more concentrated around the equatorial plane. As a result, the preferred direction of the explosion in 3-dimensional rotating models is perpendicular to the spin axis, which is in sharp contrast to the polar explosions around the axis that are often obtained from 2-dimensional simulations.