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Massive stars play a fundamental role in shaping the evolution of galaxies through feedback, chemical enrichment, and their end products as neutron stars and black holes. Despite major progress in the last decade, key uncertainties remain…
Stellar winds of massive stars are known to be driven by line absorption of UV photons, a mechanism which is prone to instabilities, causing the wind to be clumpy. The clumpy structure hampers wind mass-loss estimates, limiting our…
The study of massive X-ray binaries provides important observational diagnostics for a number of fundamental astrophysical issues, such as the evolution of massive stars, the stellar winds of massive stars, the formation of compact objects…
Stars interact with their planets through gravitation, radiation, and magnetic fields. Although magnetic activity decreases with time, reducing associated high-energy (e.g., coronal XUV emission, flares), stellar winds persist throughout…
Current burning issues in stellar physics, for both hot and cool stars, concern their magnetism. In hot stars, stable magnetic fields of fossil origin impact their stellar structure and circumstellar environment, with a likely major role in…
Stellar winds form an integral part of astronomy. The solar wind affects Earth's magnetosphere, while the winds of hot massive stars are highly relevant for galactic feedback through their mechanical wind energy. In different parts of the…
Pulsars are neutron stars that rotate rapidly. Most of the pulsars in binary systems tend to spin faster than those in isolation. According to binary evolution theory, radio pulsars in binary systems can have various types of companion…
One of the key questions in Astrophysics concerns the issue of whether there exists an upper-mass limit to stars, and if so, what physical mechanism sets this limit, which might also determine if the upper-mass limit is metallicity (Z)…
Our understanding of massive star evolution is in flux, due to recent upheavals in our view of mass loss, and observations of a high binary fraction among O-type stars. Mass-loss rates for standard metallicity-dependent winds of hot stars…
Stellar winds of cool, main-sequence stars are very tenuous and difficult to observe. Despite carrying away only a small amount of the stellar mass, they are important for regulating the rotation of the star and, consequently, its activity…
Asteroseismology has become an indispensable method for measuring stellar ages and radii, while binary systems remain the most prevalent tool for determining stellar masses. The synergy of the two, namely pulsating stars in binary systems,…
The chemical enrichment of the Universe; the mass spectrum of planetary nebulae, white dwarfs and gravitational wave progenitors; the frequency distribution of Type I and II supernovae; the fate of exoplanets ... a multitude of phenomena…
Binaries with hot massive components are strong X-ray sources. Besides the intrinsic X-ray emission of individual binary members originating in their winds, X-ray emission stems from the accretion on the compact companion or from wind…
When a core-collapse supernova explodes in a binary star system, the ejecta might encounter an overdense shell, where the stellar winds of the two stars previously collided. In this work, we investigate effects of such interactions on…
Forming planets around young, fast-rotating solar-like stars are exposed to an intense X-ray/extreme ultraviolet radiation field and strongly magnetized stellar winds, as a consequence of the high magnetic activity of these stars. Under…
High-mass gamma-ray binaries are powerful nonthermal galactic sources, some of them hosting a pulsar whose relativistic wind interacts with a likely inhomogeneous stellar wind. So far, modeling these sources including stellar wind…
High-mass stars are notable for several reasons: they are characterized by strong winds, which inject momentum and enriched material into their surroundings, and die spectacularly as supernovae, leaving behind compact remnants and heavy…
Aims: We study the evolution of stellar rotation and wind properties for low-mass main-sequence stars. Our aim is to use rotational evolution models to constrain the mass loss rates in stellar winds and to predict how their properties…
Although ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULX) are important for astrophysics due to their extreme apparent super-Eddington luminosities, their nature is still poorly known. Theoretical and observational studies suggest that ULXs could be a…
Unpulsed, high-energy emission from pulsar binaries can be attributed to the interaction of a pulsar wind with that of a companion star. At the shock between the outflows, particles carried away from the pulsar magnetosphere are accelerated…