Related papers: Mass loss and stellar superwinds
Some studies have claimed the existence of a stellar upper-mass limit of 150 Msun. A factor that is often overlooked concerns the issue that there might be a significant difference between the present-day and the initial mass of the most…
The rate at which massive stars eject mass in stellar winds significantly influences their evolutionary path. Cosmic rates of nucleosynthesis, explosive stellar phenomena, and compact object genesis depend on this poorly known facet of…
The mass loss from Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars is of fundamental importance for the final fate of massive stars and their chemical yields. Its Z-dependence is discussed in relation to the formation of long-duration Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) and the…
Mass-loss rates during the red supergiant phase are very poorly constrained from an observational or theoretical point of view. However, they can be very high, and make a massive star lose a lot of mass during this phase, influencing…
Classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars mark an important stage in the late evolution of massive stars. As hydrogen-poor massive stars, these objects have lost their outer layers, while still losing further mass through strong winds indicated by…
Mass loss forms an important aspect of the evolution of massive stars, as well as for the enrichment of the surrounding ISM. Our goal is to predict accurate mass-loss rates and terminal wind velocities. These quantities can be compared to…
I review multiwavelength observations of material seen around different types of evolved massive stars (i.e. red supergiants, yellow hypergiants, luminous blue variables, B[e] supergiants, and Wolf-Rayet stars), concentrating on diagnostics…
Most stars with birth masses larger than that of our Sun belong to binary or higher order multiple systems. Similarly, most stars have stellar winds. Radiation pressure and multiplicity create outflows of material that remove mass from the…
Mass loss through a stellar wind is an important physical process that steers the evolution of massive stars and controls the properties of their end-of-life products, such as the supernova type and the mass of compact remnants. For an…
[Abridged] Context: Radiation-driven mass loss plays a key role in the life-cycles of massive stars. However, basic predictions of such mass loss still suffer from significant quantitative uncertainties. Aims: We develop new…
I discuss observational evidence -- independent of the direct spectral diagnostics of stellar winds themselves -- suggesting that mass-loss rates for O stars need to be revised downward by roughly a factor of three or more, in line with…
The physics of massive stars depends (at least) on convection, mass loss by stellar winds, rotation, magnetic fields and multiplicity. We briefly discuss the impact of the first three processes on the stellar yields trying to identify some…
Mass loss through stellar winds plays a dominant role in the evolution of massive stars. Very massive stars (VMSs, $> 100 M_{\odot}$) display Wolf-Rayet spectral morphologies (WNh) whilst on the main-sequence. Bestenlehner (2020) extended…
Core-collapse Supernovae (CCSNe) mark the deaths of stars more massive than about eight times the mass of the sun and are intrinsically the most common kind of catastrophic cosmic explosions. They can teach us about many important physical…
Mass loss and axial rotation are playing key roles in shaping the evolution of massive stars. They affect the tracks in the HR diagram, the lifetimes, the surface abundances, the hardness of the radiation field, the chemical yields, the…
Some supernovae (SNe) show evidence for mass-loss events taking place prior to their explosions. Measuring their pre-outburst mass-loss rates provide essential information regarding the mechanisms that are responsible for these events. Here…
Massive stars are extremely luminous and drive strong winds, blowing a large part of their matter into the galactic environment before they finally explode as a supernova. Quantitative knowledge of massive star feedback is required to…
Very massive stars (VMS) up to 200-300 $M_\odot$ have been found in the Local Universe. If they would lose little mass they produce intermediate-mass black holes or pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). Until now, VMS modellers have…
The winds of stars with very specific temperatures and luminosities are ideal for determining the magnitude and nature of mass loss in OB stars. I identify these stars and analyze their wind lines. The results are discussed within the…
We review the main properties of solar metallicity massive stars in the range 11-120 Msun. The influence of the mass loss on the hydrostatic burning stages as well as the final explosion is discussed in some detail. We find that the minimum…