SN 1987A and rotating neutron star formation

A hypothesis to the effect that the gravitational collapse of massive spherically symmetric stellar cores can develop in two stages is presented. At the first stage, collapse takes place while angular momentum is retained until an intermediate quasi-static configuration is formed. Then a certain mechanism (perhaps magnetorotational) of the transport of angular momentum from the core to the external stellar layers comes into play. As a result, the stellar core loses its excessive angular momentum, and its collapse resumes to form a neutron star rotating with a period of 1-3 microsec. It is shown that, even in the case of extremely rapid initial rigid-body rotation, the characteristics of a neutron signal differ only slightly from those obtained in calculations, without consideration of rotation, and that the energy transported to the stellar envelope has precisely the magnitude required for explaining a supernova outburst.