Related papers: The evolution of red supergiants to supernovae
The mass loss rates of red supergiants (RSGs) govern their evolution towards supernova and dictate the appearance of the resulting explosion. To study how mass-loss rates change with evolution we measure the mass-loss rates (\mdot) and…
The fate of massive stars with initial masses >8M$_\odot$ depends largely on the mass-loss rate (\mdot ) in the end stages of their lives. Red supergiants (RSGs) are the direct progenitors to Type II-P core collapse supernovae (SN), but…
Mass-loss rates are one of the most relevant parameters determining the evolution of massive stars. In particular, the rates at which the star loses mass during the red-supergiant (RSG) phase is the least constrained by the observations or…
Massive stars less massive than ~30 Msol evolve into a red supergiant after the main sequence. Given a standard IMF, this means about 80% of all single massive stars will experience this phase. RSGs are dominated by convection, with a…
The inevitable fate of massive stars in the initial mass range of ~8--30 M_{Sun} in the red supergiant (RSG) phase is a core-collapse supernova (SN) explosion, although some stars may collapse directly to a black hole. We know that this is…
How massive stars end their lives remains an open question in the field of star evolution. While the majority of stars above 9 M_sun will become red supergiants (RSGs), the terminal state of these massive stars can be heavily influenced by…
The post main-sequence evolution of massive stars is very sensitive to many parameters of the stellar models. Key parameters are the mixing processes, the metallicity, the mass-loss rate and the effect of a close companion. We study how the…
The mass-loss rates of red supergiant stars (RSGs) are poorly constrained by direct measurements, and yet the subsequent evolution of these stars depends critically on how much mass is lost during the RSG phase. In 2012 the Geneva…
We present the preliminary results of a detailed theoretical investigation on the hydrodynamical properties of Red Supergiant (RSG) stars at solar chemical composition and for stellar masses ranging from 10 to 20 M_sun. We find that the…
The increasing observed number of supernova events allows for finding ever more frequently the progenitor star in archive images. In a few cases, the progenitor star is a yellow supergiant star. The estimated position in the…
Mass-loss in red supergiants (RSGs) is generally recognized to be episodic, but mass-loss prescriptions fail to reflect this. Evolutionary models show that the total amount of mass lost during this phase determines if these stars evolve to…
We investigate the evolution of red supergiant (RSG) progenitors of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) with initial masses between $12$ and $20~\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$, focusing on effects of enhanced mass loss due to pulsation-driven instabilities…
Prior to core collapse, the neutrino emission from red supergiants (RSGs) is so large that a nearby ($\lesssim1$kpc) RSG will become visible in current and near-future neutrino detectors. The rate of emission and the spectra of the…
Evolutionary models have shown the substantial effect that strong mass-loss rates ($\dot{M}$) can have on the fate of massive stars. Red supergiant (RSG) mass-loss is poorly understood theoretically, and so stellar models rely on purely…
Pulsations driven by partial ionization of hydrogen in the envelope are often considered important for driving winds from red supergiants (RSGs). In particular, it has been suggested by some authors that the pulsation growth rate in a RSG…
We discuss the physics and the evolution of a typical massive star passing through an evolutionary stage similar to that of Betelgeuse. After a brief introduction recalling various observed parameters of Betelgeuse, we discuss the…
The distribution of stars in the Hertzsprung Russell diagram (HRD) for a stellar conglomeration represents a snapshot of its evolving stellar population. Some of the supergiant stars may transit the HRD from blue to red and then again to…
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…
The empirical evidence for an upper mass limit for the red supergiant (RSG) progenitors of the Type II-P SNe at about 18 Msun, raises questions about the fate of the most luminous, most massive RSGs. These stars may evolve back to warmer…
Massive stars becoming red supergiants lose a significant amount of their mass during that brief evolutionary phase. They then either explode as a hydrogen-rich supernova (SN Type II), or continue to evolve as a hotter supergiant (before…