Sufficiency of planar jittering-jets feedback in SN 1987A

Determine whether positive feedback from consecutive inclined jet-launching episodes, producing a planar jittering-jets pattern, is sufficient to generate the long-lived jet pair required to explain the Keyhole morphology of SN 1987A.

Background

The paper discusses the possibility that random angular-momentum fluctuations during successive accretion episodes can create positive feedback, causing later jet-launching episodes to retain a component of angular momentum aligned with an initial accretion axis. This mechanism, called a planar jittering-jets pattern, could produce a long-lived pair of jets with a relatively fixed axis.

The authors explicitly state that the sufficiency of this mechanism for SN 1987A is unresolved and therefore introduce an alternative scenario, late directional rotational accretion, based on pre-collapse core rotation. The unresolved issue concerns whether planar jittering-jets feedback alone can account for the persistent bipolar Keyhole structure.

References

Although that effect exists, it is unclear whether it is sufficient for SN 1987A.

— Supernova 1987A was a "failed supernova" twenty thousand years before its jet-driven explosion  (2608.24801 - Soker, 25 Aug 2026) in Section 3.3, subsection “The late directional rotational accretion”