The neutrino-heating mechanism remains a viable possibility for the cause of
the explosion in a wide mass range of supernova progenitors. This is
demonstrated by recent two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations with detailed,
energy-dependent neutrino transport. Neutrino-driven explosions were not only
found for stars in the range of 8-10 solar masses with ONeMg cores and in case
of the iron core collapse of a progenitor with 11 solar masses, but also for a
``typical'' progenitor model of 15 solar masses. For such more massive stars,
however, the explosion occurs significantly later than so far thought, and is
crucially supported by large-amplitude bipolar oscillations due to the
nonradial standing accretion shock instability (SASI), whose low (dipole and
quadrupole) modes can develop large growth rates in conditions where convective
instability is damped or even suppressed. The dominance of low-mode deformation
at the time of shock revival has been recognized as a possible explanation of
large pulsar kicks and of large-scale mixing phenomena observed in supernovae
like SN 1987A.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures; review proceeding for "Supernova 1987A: 20 Years
After: Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursters" AIP, New York, eds. S. Immler, K.W.
Weiler, and R. McCra
