The luminosity of stripped-envelope supernovae, a common type of stellar explosion, is believed to be mainly driven by the radioactive decay of the nickel synthesized in the explosion and carried in its ejecta. Additional possible energy sources have been previously suggested^1,2,3,4,5, in which the two most observationally based results have been from a comparison of the observed time-weighted luminosity with the inferred radioactive power¹ and from a comparison of the light curves with particular theoretical models³. However, the former result¹ was not statistically significant, and the latter³ is highly dependent on the specific models assumed. Here we analyse the energy budget of a sample of 54 well-observed stripped-envelope supernovae of all sub-types and present statistically significant, largely model-independent, observational evidence for a non-radioactive power source in most of them (and possibly in all). We consider various energy sources, or alternatively, plausible systematic errors, that could drive this result, and conclude that the most likely option is the existence of a long-lived central engine, operating over ≈10³–10⁶ s after the explosion. We infer, from the observations, constraints on the engine properties. If, for example, the central engine is a magnetized neutron star, then the initial magnetic field is ≈10¹⁵ G and the initial rotation period is 1–100 ms, suggesting that stripped-envelope supernovae may constitute the formation events of the objects known as magnetars.

剥离包层超新星是一种常见的恒星爆炸类型，其光度被认为主要是由爆炸中合成并携带在其喷射物中的镍的放射性衰变驱动的。先前已提出了其他可能的能源^1,2,3,4,5，其中两个最基于观测的结果来自观测到的时间加权光度与推断的放射性功率¹的比较以及来自特定理论模型的光变曲线³．然而，前一个结果¹不具有统计显着性，而后^3个则高度依赖于假设的具体模型。在这里，我们分析了所有子类型的 54 颗经过良好观测的剥壳超新星样本的能量收支，并提供了统计上显着的、很大程度上与模型无关的观测证据，证明其中大多数（并且可能在全部）。我们考虑了可能导致这一结果的各种能源，或者可能的系统误差，并得出结论，最有可能的选择是存在一个长寿命的中央发动机， 在爆炸后运行约 10 ³ –10 ⁶秒。我们从观察中推断出对发动机性能的限制。例如，如果中心引擎是一颗磁化中子星，那么初始磁场约为 10 ¹⁵  G，初始自转周期为 1-100 ms，这表明剥离包层超新星可能构成了已知天体的形成事件。作为磁星。