Asymmetric explosion of core-collapse supernovae

A core-collapse supernova represents the ultimate stage of the evolution of massive stars.The iron core contraction may be followed by a gigantic explosion which gives birth to a neutron star.The multidimensional dynamics of the innermost region, during the first hundreds milliseconds, plays a decisive role on the explosion success because hydrodynamical instabilities are able to break the spherical symmetry of the collapse. Large scale transverse motions generated by two instabilities, the neutrino-driven convection and the Standing Accretion Shock Instability (SASI), increase the heating efficiency up to the point of launching an asymmetric explosion and influencing the birth properties of the neutron star. In this thesis, hydrodynamical instabilities are studied using numerical simulations of simplified models.These models enable a wide exploration of the parameter space and a better physical understanding of the instabilities, generally inaccessible to realistic models.The non-linear regime of SASI is analysed to characterize the conditions under which a spiral mode prevails and to assess its ability to redistribute angular momentum radially. The influence of rotation on the shock dynamics is also addressed.For fast enough rotation rates, a corotation instability overlaps with SASI and greatly impacts the dynamics. The simulations enable to better constrain the effect of non-axisymmetric modes on the angular momentum budget of the iron core collapsing into a neutron star.SASI may under specific conditions spin up or down the pulsar born during the explosion. Finally, an idealised model of the heating region is studied to characterize the non-linear onset of convection by perturbations such as those produced by SASI or pre-collapse combustion inhomogeneities. The dimensionality issue is examined to stress the beneficial consequences of the three-dimensional dynamics on the onset of the explosion. (author)