Related papers: Model physics in low-mass solar-type stars: atomic…
The process that leads to the formation and early evolution of low-mass stars is in a broad sense well understood theoretically and carefully traced observationally. The largest uncertainties in this framework reside in the poorly known…
Stars do not simply pop up on the main sequence. Before the stars arrive on the zero-age main sequence, they form in the collapses of molecular clouds, gain matter through accretion processes, and compress their cores until hydrogen can…
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…
Magnetic fields influence the formation and evolution of stars and impact the observed stellar properties. Ap stars (magnetic A-type stars) are a prime example of this. Access to precise and accurate determinations of their stellar…
In this chapter I give an overall description of the structure and evolution of stars of different masses, and review the main ingredients included in state-of-the-art calculations aiming at reproducing observational features. I give…
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…
The extent to which turbulence mixes gas in the face of recurrent infusions of fresh metals by supernovae (SN) could help provide important constraints on the local star formation conditions. This includes predictions of the metallicity…
We present a simple toy model to understand what sets the scatter in star formation and metallicity of galaxies at fixed mass. The scatter ultimately arises from the intrinsic scatter in the accretion rate, but may be substantially reduced…
In the context of the space-based mission CoRoT, devoted to asteroseismology and search for planet transits, we analyse the accuracy of fundamental stellar parameters (mass, radius, luminosity) that can be obtained from asteroseismological…
Current stellar model predictions of adiabatic oscillation frequencies differ significantly from the corresponding observed frequencies due to the non-adiabatic and poorly understood near-surface layers of stars. However, certain…
Recent dramatic improvements in the modeling of abundance evolution due to diffusion in A stars have been achieved with the help of monochromatic opacity tables from the OPAL group. An important result in the context of stellar pulsations…
Integrated spectrophotometric properties of stellar systems are intrinsically dispersed due to the stochastic nature of the small numbers of bright stars they contain. Among clusters, only the most massive ones can be used individually for…
Stellar fundamental properties (masses, radii, effective temperatures) can be extracted from observations of eclipsing binary systems with remarkable precision, often better than 2%. Such precise measurements afford us the opportunity to…
Mass loss and variability are two linked, fundamental properties of evolved stars. In this paper I review our current understanding of these processes, with a particular focus on how observations and models are used to constrain reliable…
The convective overshoot mixing plays an important role in stellar structure and evolution. However, the overshoot mixing is a long standing problem. The uncertainty of the overshoot mixing is one of the most uncertain factors in stellar…
We review the theory of electron-conduction opacity, a fundamental ingredient in the computation of low-mass stellar models; shortcomings and limitations of the existing calculations used in stellar evolution are discussed. We then present…
Eclipsing binary stars have long served as benchmark systems to measure fundamental stellar properties. In the past few decades, asteroseismology - the study of stellar pulsations - has emerged as a new powerful tool to study the structure…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the initial mean density of the molecular cloud in which stellar clusters form using radiation hydrodynamical simulations that resolve the opacity limit for fragmentation. We have…
A comparison is made between the age-metallicity relation obtained from four different types of studies: F and G stars in the Solar Neighbourhood, analysis of open clusters, galactic structure studies with the stellar population synthesis…
Each time diffusion of elements is invoked in explaining abundance anomalies in a star, this supposes implicitly that a stratification process is in progress somewhere in that star. This means also, that the element abundances can still be…