We argue that some scenarios for the enigmatic supernova (SN) iPTF14hls and its progenitor require a strong binary interaction. We examine scenarios that attribute the extra power of iPTF14hls to a magnetar, to a late fallback on to the neutron star (NS) that launches jets, to an interaction of the ejecta with a circumstellar matter (CSM), or to a common envelope jets SN (CEJSN). For each of these four scenarios, we study the crucial process that supplies the extra energy and conclude that a binary companion to the progenitor must be present. For the magnetar scenario and late jets we claim that a companion should spin-up the pre-collapse core, in the ejecta-CSM scenario we find that the formation of the equatorial CSM requires a companion, and in the CEJSN where a NS spirals-in inside the giant envelope of the progenitor and launches jets the strong binary interaction is built-in. We argue that these types of strong binary interactions make the scenarios rare and explain the enigmatic nature of iPTF14hls. We further study processes that might accompany the binary interaction, in particular, the launching of jets before, during and after the explosion and their observational consequences. We do not consider the difficulties of the different scenarios and neither do we determine the best scenario for iPTF14hls. We rather focus on the binary nature of these scenarios that might as well explain other rare types of SNe.

We relate the pre-explosion binding energy of the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) of stars with masses in the lower range of CCSNe and the location of the convection zones in the pre-collapse core of these stars, to explosion properties in the frame of the jittering jets explosion mechanism. Our main conclusion is that in the frame of the jittering jets explosion mechanism the remnant of a pulsar in these low-energy CCSNe has some significance, in that the launching of jets by the newly born neutron star (NS) spins-up the NS and create a pulsar. We crudely estimated the period of the pulsars to be tens of milliseconds in these cases. The convective zones seed perturbations that lead to accretion of stochastic angular momentum that in turn is assumed to launch jittering jets in this explosion mechanism. We calculate the binding energy and the location of the convective zones with the stellar evolution code mesa. For the lowest stellar masses, we study, MZAMS ≃ 8.5–11 M⊙, the binding energy above the convective zones is low, and so is the expected explosion energy in the jittering jets explosion mechanism that works in a negative feedback cycle. The expected mass of the NS remnant is MNS ≈ 1.25–1.6 M⊙, even for these low-energy CCSNe.

We evolve models of rotating massive stars up to the stage of iron core collapse using the mesa code and find a shell with a mixed composition of primarily helium and oxygen in some cases. In the parameter space of initial masses of 13-40M ⊙ and initial rotation velocities of 0-450 km s −1 that we investigate, we find a mixed helium-oxygen (He-O) shell with a significant total He-O mass and with a helium to oxygen mass ratio in the range of 0.5-2 only for a small fraction of the models. While the shell formation due to mixing is instigated by rotation, the pre-collapse rotation rate is not very high.The fraction of models with a shell of He-O composition required for an energetic collapse-induced thermonuclear explosion is small, as is the fraction of models with high specific angular momentum, which can aid the thermonuclear explosion by retarding the collapse. Our results suggest that the collapse-induced thermonuclear explosion mechanism that was revisited recently can account for at most a small fraction of core-collapse supernovae. The presence of such a mixed He-O shell still might have some implications for core-collapse supernovae, such as some nucleosynthesis processes when jets are present, or might result in peculiar sub-luminous core-collapse supernovae.

We evolve stellar models with zero age main sequence (ZAMS) mass of M ZAMS 18M ⊙ under the assumption that they experience an enhanced mass-loss rate when crossing the instability strip at high luminosities, and conclude that most of them end as type Ibc supernovae (SNe Ibc) or dust-obscured SNe II. We examine the hydrogen mass in the stellar envelope and the optical depth of the dusty wind at explosion, and crudely estimate that only about a fifth of these stars explode as unobscured SNe II and SNe IIb. About 10-15 percent end as obscured SNe II that are infrared-bright but visibly very faint, and the rest, about 65-70 percent end as SNe Ibc. Our findings have implications to the 'red supergiant problem', referring to the death of observed core-collapse supernovae with M ZAMS 18M ⊙ , as we conclude that it is possible that all these stars actually do explode as CCSNe. However, the statistical uncertainties are still too large to decide whether many stars with M ZAMS 18M ⊙ do not explode as expected in the neutrino driven explosion mechanism, or whether all of them explode as CCSNe, as expected by the jittering jets explosion mechanism.