Are supernova explosions driven by magnetic springs?

Abstract

SUPERNOVA explosions are generally believed¹ to be powered by the gravitational energy of a collapsing core of (Chandrasekhar) mass ∼ 1.4M_⊙. There is a difficulty, however, with the radial momentum balance: how is the liberated energy converted into the radial motion of an ejected shell? Neither thermal pressure gradients nor neutrino pressures seem to be sufficient to accelerate matter to the observed several per cent of the velocity of light, even after the 1974 rise in the calculated cross section for resonant neutrino scattering. On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that magnetic neutron stars^1–3 form at the centre of (at least a large subclass of) supernovae. I should like to argue that their magnetic pressure is a serious candidate for driving the supernova motion.