Related papers: Will Betelguese Explode?
The gravitational core collapse of a star produces a huge burst of neutrinos of all flavors. A number of detectors worldwide are sensitive to such a burst; its detection would yield information about both particle physics and astrophysics.…
Almost since the beginning, massive stars and their resultant supernovae have played a crucial role in the Universe. These objects produce tremendous amounts of energy and new, heavy elements that enrich galaxies, encourage new stars to…
New facilities and technologies have advanced our understanding of massive stars significantly over the past 30 years. Here I introduce a new large survey of massive stars using VLT-FLAMES, noting the target fields and observed binary…
While the modern stellar IMF shows a rapid decline with increasing mass, theoretical investigations suggest that very massive stars (>100 solar masses) may have been abundant in the early universe. Other calculations also indicate that,…
Stars are unique bodies of the Universe where self-gravity compress matter to such high temperature and density that several nuclear fusion reactions ignite, providing enough feedback against further compression for a time that can be even…
The discovery of the extremely luminous supernova SN 2006gy, possibly interpreted as a pair instability supernova, renewed the interest in very massive stars. We explore the evolution of these objects, which end their life as pair…
We discuss the future evolution of the universe in the light of recent observations. The apparent luminosity vs. redshift of supernovae favor an accelerating universe. However an Einstein-de Sitter critical universe should not be ruled out…
With the new discoveries enabled thanks to the recent space missions, stellar physics is going through a revolution. However, these discoveries opened the door to many new questions that require more observations. The European Space…
A significant fraction of stars between 7-11 solar masses are thought to become supernovae, but the explosion mechanism is unclear. The answer depends critically on the rate of electron capture on $^{20}$Ne in the degenerate oxygen-neon…
In the last decade, neutrino astronomy has taken off with two major breakthroughs, the first observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in 2013 and the first evidence for gamma-rays and neutrinos from a single object published in…
Context. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant (RSG) that is known to vary semi-regularly on both short and long timescales. The origin of the short period of Betelgeuse has often been associated to radial pulsations but could also be due to the…
Massive stars are able to pursue their evolution through the whole sequence of burning phases. They are born hot and luminous, and live a short life before exploding as a supernova or collapsing directly into a black hole. They have a…
Massive stars, by which we mean those stars exploding as core collapse supernovae, play a pivotal role in the evolution of the Universe. Therefore, the understanding of their evolution and explosion is fundamental in many branches of…
The theory underlying the evolution and death of stars heavier than 10 Msun on the main sequence is reviewed with an emphasis upon stars much heavier than 30 Msun. These are stars that, in the absence of substantial mass loss, are expected…
Context: Betelgeuse is one the largest stars in the sky in terms of angular diameter. Structures on the stellar photosphere have been detected in the visible and near-infrared as well as a compact molecular environment called the MOLsphere.…
We discuss the possibility for a cooled down and otherwise stable solitary neutron star to make a spontaneous transition to its potential black hole ground state. This fundamental process would mimic a precursorless explosion in which the…
SAO244567 is a rare example of a star that allows us to witness stellar evolution in real time. Between 1971 and 1990 it changed from a B-type star into the hot central star of the Stingray Nebula. This observed rapid heating has been a…
Stars with initial masses larger than 8 solar masses undergo substantial mass loss through mechanisms that remain elusive. Unraveling the origins of this mass loss is important for comprehending the evolutionary path of these stars, the…
We have analyzed Chandra calibration observations of Betelgeuse (alpha Ori, M2Iab, m_V=0.58, 131 pc) obtained at the aimpoint locations of the HRC-I (8 ks), HRC-S (8 ks), and ACIS-I (5 ks). Betelgeuse is undetected in all the individual…
In the last ten years, the field of Cherenkov astronomy has become an important contributor to high energy astrophysics with the detection of eight objects at energies above 300 GeV. These observations have advanced our understanding of…