Related papers: Towards 21st Century Stellar Models: Star Clusters…
During the last decade, the understanding of fine features of the structure and evolution of stars has become possible as a result of enormous progress made in the acquisition of high-quality observational and experimental data and of new…
We provide a status report on the determination of stellar ages from asteroseismology for stars of various masses and evolutionary stages. The ability to deduce the ages of stars with a relative precision of typically 10 to 20% is a unique…
In spite of the great effort made in the last decades to improve our understanding of stellar evolution, significant uncertainties remain due to our poor knowledge of some complex physical processes that require an empirical calibration,…
Rotation matters for the life of a star. It causes a multitude of dynamical phenomena in the stellar interior during a star's evolution and its effects accumulate until the star dies. All stars rotate at some level but those born with a…
During the last century, with the development of modern physics in such diverse fields as thermodynamics, statistical physics, and nuclear and particle physics, the basic principles of the evolution of stars have been successfully well…
Asteroseismology has the capability of delivering stellar properties which would otherwise be inaccessible, such as radii, masses and thus ages of stars. When coupling this information with classical determinations of stellar parameters,…
Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution due to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work…
Molecular clouds are the principle stellar nurseries of our universe, keeping them in the focus of both observational and theoretical studies. From observations, some of the key properties of molecular clouds are well known but many…
While optical and quantum efficiency are on the rise, and spectrographs becoming massively multiplexed, measuring spectral energy distributions of astronomical sources with accuracy remains a challenge. In addition to atmospheric…
Stellar halos around galaxies retain fundamental evidence of the processes which lead to their build up. Sophisticated models of galaxy formation in a cosmological context yield quantitative predictions about various observable…
Accurate determinations of masses and radii in binary stars, along with estimates of the effective temperatures, metallicities, and other properties, have long been used to test models of stellar evolution. As might be expected,…
In this review, I will discuss a few problems which point to the need for improved stellar evolution models of halo stars. Current stellar evolution models do not match the observed $^7$Li abundance patterns, suggesting that the input…
Despite major progress in our understanding of massive stars, concerning discrepancies still remain between observations and theory. Most notable are the numerous stars observed beyond the theoretical main sequence, an evolutionary phase…
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illuminate them, and transfer material between binary…
Until the last few decades, investigations of stellar interiors had been restricted to theoretical studies only constrained by observations of their global properties and external characteristics. However, in the last thirty years the field…
Convection and turbulence in stellar atmospheres have a significant effect on the emergent flux from late-type stars. The theoretical advancements in convection modelling over recent years have proved challenging for the observers to obtain…
Low-mass stars play a key role in many different areas of astrophysics. In this article, I provide a brief overview of the evolution of low-mass stars, and discuss some of the uncertainties and problems currently affecting low-mass stellar…
The effects of rapid rotation on stellar evolution can be profound. We are now beginning to gather enough data to allow a realistic comparison between different physical models. Two key tests for any theory of stellar rotation are first…
Modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context presents one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics today, due to the vast range of scales and numerous physical processes involved. Here we review the current status of models that…
The status of the art for evolutionary models of low mass, population II stars is revisited, stressing the need for the models to be preliminarily tested with suitable observational data. The uncertainties still affecting the theory are…