Related papers: Powerful explosions at Z=0 ?
(Abridged) Rotation has been shown to play a determinant role at very low metallicity, bringing heavy mass loss where almost none was expected. Is this still true when the metallicity strictly equals zero? The aim of our study is to get an…
We present evolutionary models of zero-metallicity very massive objects, with initial masses in the range 120 Msun -- 1000 Msun, covering their quiescent evolution up to central carbon ignition. In the attempt of exploring the possible…
Rotation deeply affects the evolution of very metal poor massive stars. Indeed, even moderately rotating stars reach the break--up limit during the Main--Sequence (MS) phase, they evolve rapidly to the red after the core H--burning phase…
We present new evolutionary models of primordial very massive stars, with initial masses ranging from $100\,\mathrm{{M}_{\odot}}$ to $1000\,\mathrm{{M}_{\odot}}$, that extend from the main sequence until the onset of dynamical instability…
The stability of metal-free very massive stars ($Z$ = 0; $M = 120 - 500 \msol$) is analyzed and compared with metal-enriched stars. Such zero-metal stars are unstable to nuclear-powered radial pulsations on the main sequence, but the growth…
While the modern stellar IMF shows a rapid decline with increasing mass, theoretical investigations suggest that very massive stars (>100 solar masses) may have been abundant in the early universe. Other calculations also indicate that,…
The first stars are assumed to be predominantly massive. Although, due to the low initial abundances of heavy elements the line-driven stellar winds are supposed to be inefficient in the first stars, these stars may loose a significant…
We discuss the evolutionary properties of primordial massive and very massive stars, supposed to have formed from metal-free gas. Stellar models are presented over a large range of initial masses (8 Msun <= Mi <= 1000 Msun), covering the…
Some indirect observations, as the high fraction of Be stars at low metallicity, or the necessity for massive stars to be important sources of primary nitrogen, seem to indicate that very metal poor stars were fast rotators. As a…
We calculate new evolutionary models of rotating primordial very massive stars, with initial mass from $100\,M_{\odot}$ to $200\,M_{\odot}$, for two values of the initial metallicity ${Z=0}$ and ${Z=0.0002}$. For the first time in this mass…
The evolution and explosion of metal-free stars with masses 10--100 solar masses are followed, and their nucleosynthetic yields, light curves, and remnant masses determined. When the supernova yields are integrated over a Salpeter initial…
Although the theoretical study of very low metallicity (Z) and metal-free stars is not new, their importance has recently greatly increased since two related fields have been developing rapidly. The first is cosmological simulations of the…
The initial mass and metallicity of stars both have a strong impact on their fate. Stellar axial rotation also has a strong impact on the structure and evolution of massive stars. In this study, we exploit the large grid of GENEC models,…
Growing theoretical evidence suggests that the first generation of stars may have been quite massive (~100-300 solar masses). If they retain their high mass until death, such stars will, after about 3Myr, make pair-instability supernovae.…
At very low metallicity, the effects of differential rotation have a more important impact on the evolution of stars than at high metallicity. Rotational mixing leads to the production of great quantities of helium and of primary $^{14}$N…
The first generation of stars was formed from primordial gas. Numerical simulations suggest that the first stars were predominantly very massive, with typical masses M > 100 Mo. These stars were responsible for the reionization of the…
We explore a possible scenario of the explosion as a result of core collapses of rotating massive stars that leave a black hole by performing a radiation-viscous-hydrodynamics simulation in numerical relativity. We take moderately and…
We present the evolution and the explosion of two massive stars, 15 and 25 M$_{\odot}$, spanning a wide range of initial rotation velocities (from 0 to 800 km/s) and three initial metallicities: Z=0 ([Fe/H]=$-\infty$), $3.236\times10^{-7}$…
If the cosmological dark matter has a component made of small primordial black holes, they may have a significant impact on the physics of the first stars and on the subsequent formation of massive black holes. Primordial black holes would…
Massive stars, by which we mean those stars exploding as core collapse supernovae, play a pivotal role in the evolution of the Universe. Therefore, the understanding of their evolution and explosion is fundamental in many branches of…