Impact of rotation on the accretion of entropy perturbations in collapsing massive stars

Abstract

Convection in the innermost shells of massive stars plays an important role in initiating core-collapse supernovae. When these convective motions reach the supernova shock, they create extra turbulence, which helps energize the explosion. In our earlier work, we studied the effect of rotation on the hydrodynamic evolution of convective vortices in collapsing stars. This study focuses on how rotation influences the entropy perturbations, which naturally form in turbulent convection. As these perturbations are carried inward with the collapsing star, they generate both vorticity and sound waves. Using linear perturbation theory, we model entropy waves as small disturbances on top of a steady background flow. Our results show that stellar rotation has little effect on the evolution of entropy perturbations during collapse, prior to encountering the supernova shock. This outcome is consistent with our earlier findings on the limited influence of rotation in the accretion of convective eddies.