Anisotropic explosion of rotating, self-gravitating uniform spheroids

Abstract

The explosion of a uniformly rotating, spatially homogeneous spheroid with an internal pressure is followed numerically for various initial conditions and for different pressure-density relations. One particularly intriguing result is that very prolate (about the axis of rotation) configurations may be produced asymptotically for moderate energy release (i.e., slightly larger than the gravitational binding energy) whenever the explosion is not radiation dominated. We discuss briefly the relevance of our results in various astrophysical contexts like radio galaxies, supernovae, etc.