Stability of Standing Accretion Shocks, with an Eye toward Core Collapse Supernovae

We examine the stability of standing, spherical accretion shocks. Accretion shocks arise in core collapse supernovae (the focus of this paper), star formation, and accreting white dwarfs and neutron stars. We present a simple analytic model and use timedependent hydrodynamics simulations to show that this solution is stable to radial perturbations. In two dimensions we show that small perturbations to a spherical shock front can lead to rapid growth of turbulence behind the shock, driven by the injection of vorticity from the now non-spherical shock. We discuss the ramifications this instability may have for the supernova mechanism. Subject headings: accretion—hydrodynamics—shock waves —supernovae:general—turbulence