Effect of rotation on the stability of a stalled cylindrical shock and its consequences for core-collapse supernovae

A perturbative analysis is used to investigate the effect of rotation on the instability of a steady accretion shock (SASI) in a simple toy model, in view of better understanding supernova explosions in which the collapsing core contains angular momentum. A cylindrical geometry is chosen for the sake of simplicity. Even when the centrifugal force is very small, rotation can have a strong effect on the nonaxisymmetric modes of SASI by increasing the growth rate of the spiral modes rotating in the same direction as the steady flow. Counterrotating spiral modes are significantly damped, while axisymmetric modes are hardly affected by rotation. The growth rates of spiral modes have a nearly linear dependence on the specific angular momentum of the flow. The fundamental one-armed spiral mode (m = 1) is favored for small rotation rates, whereas stronger rotation rates favor the mode m = 2. A WKB analysis of higher harmonics indicates that the efficiency of the advective-acoustic cycles associated with spiral modes is strongly affected by rotation in the same manner as low-frequency modes, whereas the purely acoustic cycles are stable. These results suggest that the linear phase of SASI in rotating core-collapse supernovae naturally selects a spiral mode rotating in the same direction as the flow, as observed in the three-dimensional numerical simulations of Blondin and Mezzacappa. This emphasizes the need for a three-dimensional approach to rotating core collapse, before conclusions on the explosion mechanisms and pulsar kicks can be drawn.