  The equation of state (EOS) for hot asymmetric nuclear matter which is
constructed with the variational method starting from the Argonne v18 and
Urbana IX nuclear forces is applied to spherically symmetric core-collapse
supernovae (SNe). We first investigate the EOS of isentropic beta-stable SN
matter, and find that the matter with the variational EOS is more neutron-rich
than that with the Shen EOS. Using the variational EOS for uniform matter
supplemented by the Shen EOS of non-uniform matter at low densities, we perform
general-relativistic spherically symmetric simulations of core-collapse SNe
with and without neutrino transfer, starting from a presupernova model of 15
solar mass. In the adiabatic simulation without neutrino transfer, the
explosion is successful, and the explosion energy with the variational EOS is
larger than that with the Shen EOS. In the case of the simulation with neutrino
transfer, the shock wave stalls and then the explosion fails, as in other
spherically symmetric simulations. The inner core with the variational EOS is
more compact than that with the Shen EOS, due to the relative softness of the
variational EOS. This implies that the variational EOS is more advantageous for
SN explosions than the Shen EOS.
