Related papers: Massive main sequence stars evolving at the Edding…
Stars falling too close to massive black holes in the centres of galaxies can be torn apart by the strong tidal forces. Simulating the subsequent feeding of the black hole with disrupted material has proved challenging because of the range…
We develop analytic and numerical models of the properties of super-Eddington stellar winds, motivated by phases in stellar evolution when super-Eddington energy deposition (via, e.g., unstable fusion, wave heating, or a binary companion)…
[Abridged] To investigate the evolution in the relation between galaxy stellar and central black hole mass we construct a volume limited complete sample of 85 AGN with host galaxy stellar masses M_{*} > 10^{10.5} M_{sol}, and specific X-ray…
We consider the hypothesis that the formation of elliptical galaxies includes a phase in which star formation is mostly restricted to massive stars, with the bias towards high mass stars increasing with elliptical galaxy mass. The mass…
We investigate the formation by accretion of massive primordial protostars in the range 10 to 300 Msun. The high accretion rate used in the models (4.4 x 10^{-3} Msun/yr) causes the structure and evolution to differ significantly from those…
Massive stars can explode in powerful supernovae (SNe) forming neutron stars but they may also collapse directly into black holes (BHs). Understanding and predicting their final fate is increasingly important, e.g, in the context of…
Massive stars can develop into tepid supergiants at several stages of their post main-sequence evolution, prior to core He-burning, on a blue loop, or close to the final supernova explosion. We discuss observational constraints on models of…
Recent stellar evolution computations indicate that massive stars in the range ~ 20 - 30 Msun are located in the blue supergiant (BSG) region of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram at two different stages of their life: immediately after the…
We examine some properties of stars evolving close to the classical Eddington limit for electron-scattering opacity, when these stars maintain a chemically homogeneous structure as a result of mixing and/or mass loss. We consider analytical…
We study the impact of heavy dark matter (DM) captured in massive stars via scattering(s) with the star constituents. We focus on the first stars and use stellar evolution simulations to track down how DM capture evolves over time from the…
Increasing main sequence stellar luminosity with stellar mass leads to the eventual dominance of radiation pressure in stellar envelope hydrostatic balance. As the luminosity approaches the Eddington limit, additional instabilities (beyond…
We explore the evolution of massive stars (>8 solar masses) with 1-D models and present analytical fits to the masses and binding energies of the convective portions of their envelopes. These fits are given as functions of total mass,…
We show that the optically-thick dusty envelopes surrounding young high-mass stars are subject to the photon bubble instability. The infrared radiation passing through the envelope amplifies magnetosonic disturbances, with growth rates in…
We show that the disruption of a star by a 10^6 solar mass black hole in a galactic nucleus could under favorable circumstances produce an optically-thick envelope that radiates with a thermal spectrum at the Eddington limit, 10^{44} erg/s,…
The Humphreys-Davidson (HD) limit sets the boundary between evolutionary channels of massive stars that either end their lives as red supergiants (RSGs) or as the hotter blue supergiants (BSGs) and Wolf-Rayet stars. Mixing in the envelopes…
The understanding of the rotational evolution of early-type stars is deeply related to that of anisotropic mass and angular momentum loss. In this paper, we aim to clarify the rotational evolution of rapidly rotating early-type stars along…
Some physical processes that occur during a star's main-sequence evolution also affect its post main-sequence evolution. It is well known that stars with masses above approximately 1.1 $M_{\odot}$ have well-mixed convective cores on the…
Super-Eddington luminosities in hydrostatic model atmospheres manifest themselves by the presence of gas pressure inversions. Such inversions are not an artifact of the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium but can also be present in…
We study the convection zones in the outer envelope of hot massive stars which are caused by opacity peaks associated with iron and helium ionization. We determine the occurrence and properties of these convection zones as function of the…
Rotation has become an important element in evolutionary models of massive stars, specifically via the prediction of rotational mixing. Here, we study a sample of stars, including rapid rotators, to constrain such models and use nitrogen…