Related papers: Measuring the Upper End of the Initial Mass Functi…
Recent supernova and transient surveys have revealed an increasing number of non-terminal stellar eruptions. Though the progenitor class of these eruptions includes the most luminous stars, little is known of the pre-supernova mechanics of…
The detection of numerous and relatively bright galaxies at redshifts z > 9 has prompted new investigations into the star-forming properties of high-redshift galaxies. Using local forms of the initial mass function (IMF) to estimate stellar…
Type IIP (plateau) supernovae are thought to come from stars with initial mass about 8-25 solar masses that end their lives as red supergiants. The expected stellar end points can be found from evolutionary calculations and the…
The interaction of post-explosion supernova ejecta with the surrounding circumstellar medium creates emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the circumstellar medium is created by the mass lost from the progenitor star, it…
Supernovae are important probes of the properties of stars at high redshifts because they can be detected at early epochs and their masses can be inferred from their light curves. Direct detection of the first cosmic explosions in the…
Supernovae are Nature's high-energy, high density laboratory experiments, reaching densities in excess of nuclear densities and temperatures above 10MeV. Astronomers have built up a suite of diagnostics to study these supernovae. If we can…
In this contribution, our knowledge of the initial conditions under which massive star formation takes place is reviewed. Massive stars are born in massive clumps of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), hence first the properties of GMCs are…
Thermonuclear (type Ia) supernovae are bright stellar explosions with the unique property that the light curves can be standardized, allowing them to be used as distance indicators for cosmological studies. Many fundamental questions bout…
Observations and theories of the stellar initial mass function are reviewed. The universality and large total mass range of the power law portion of the IMF suggest a connection between stellar mass and cloud structure. The fractal patterns…
We review some results of the past 12 years derived from optical and infrared photometry of Type Ia supernovae. A combination of optical and infrared photometry allows us to determine accurately the extinction along the line of sight. The…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is expressed by $\phi(m) \propto m^{-\alpha}$ with the slope $\alpha$, and known as the poorly-constrained but very important function in studies of star and galaxy formation. There are no sensible…
The rapid advances in infrared detector technology over the past decades have impelled the development of wide-field instruments, and shaped our view of the cold universe. Large scale surveys in our Galaxy have discovered hundreds of brown…
Early observations of supernova light curves are powerful tools for shedding light on the pre-explosion structures of their progenitors and their mass-loss histories just prior to explosion. Some core-collapse supernovae that are detected…
Any predictive theory of star formation must explain observed variations (or lack thereof) in the initial mass function. Recent work suggests that we might expect quantitative variations in the IMF as a function of metallicity (Larson 2005)…
Extremely metal-poor stars are uniquely informative on the nature of massive Population III stars. Modulo a few elements that vary with stellar evolution, the present-day photospheric abundances observed in extremely metal-poor stars are…
Type Ia supernovae are thought to be thermonuclear explosions of accreting white dwarfs that reach a critical mass limit. Despite their importance as cosmological distance indicators, the nature of their progenitors has remained…
All types of supernovae (SNe), except Type Ia, have been observed to interact with their immediate circumstellar medium (CSM). This interaction can reveal their progenitor's histories, and constrain our ideas about the evolution of massive…
The cosmic infrared background (IRB) at wavelengths between 1 micron and 3 microns provides a useful probe of early star-formation prior to and during reionization. To explain the high optical depth to electron scattering, as measured by…
Nova outbursts are the result of strong thermonuclear runaways on the surface of a white dwarf accreting Hydrogen-rich material from a small mass companion. These giant explosions cause the star to increase its brightness by hundreds of…
(abridged) The dynamical V-band mass-to-light ratios of ultra compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) are higher than predicted by simple stellar population models with the canonical stellar initial mass function (IMF). One way to explain this…