Related papers: Classical OBe Stars as Post-Supernova Runaways: Co…
It is now clear that central star binarity plays a key role in the formation and evolution of planetary nebulae, with a significant fraction playing host to close-binary central stars which have survived one or more common envelope…
We present a study of the infrared properties of 4922 spectroscopically confirmed massive stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, focusing on the active OB star population. Besides OB stars, our sample includes yellow and red…
Thanks to their usefulness in various fields of astrophysics (e.g. mixing processes in stars, chemical evolution of galaxies), the last few years have witnessed a large increase in the amount of abundance data for early-type stars. Two…
About 20% of all B-type stars are classical Be stars. The Be phenomenon is strongly correlated with rapid rotation, the origin of which remains unclear. It may be rooted in single- or binary-star evolution. In the framework of the binary…
Classical Be stars, the "e" standing for the presence of spectroscopic line emission, are main sequence stars of spectral type B that are able to form a gaseous disk in Keplerian motion from star-ejected matter. The main driver of this…
Galactic field Be stars were studied by taking into account the effects induced by the fast rotation on their fundamental parameters. Fractional ages $\tau/\tau\_{\rm MS}$ ($\tau\_{\rm MS}$ = time spent in the MS) against stellar mass…
In this paper we review the observational data for OB stars in the SMC concentrating on those aspects of their spectra which provide information on processes which may strongly influence their evolution, namely mass-loss, rotational mixing…
Some massive, merging black holes (BH) may be descendants of binary O stars. The evolution and mass transfer between these O stars determines the spins of their progeny BH. These will be measurable with future gravitational wave detectors,…
Massive stars can be found in wide (hundreds to thousands AU) binaries with other massive stars. We use $N$-body simulations to show that any bound cluster should always have approximately one massive wide binary: one will probably form if…
The distribution of N*, the number of OB stars per association or cluster, appears to follow a universal power-law form $N*^{-2}$ in the local Universe. We evaluate the distribution of N* in the Small Magellanic Cloud using recent broadband…
Rapidly rotating classical OBe stars have been proposed as the products of binary interactions, and the fraction of Be stars with compact companions implies that at least some are. However, to constrain the interaction physics spinning up…
The Be star phenomenon is related to fast rotation, although the cause of this fast rotation is not yet clearly established. The basic effects of fast rotation on the stellar structure are reviewed: oblateness, mixing, anisotropic winds.…
In massive stars, magnetic fields are thought to confine the outflowing radiatively-driven wind, resulting in X-ray emission that is harder, more variable and more efficient than that produced by instability-generated shocks in non-magnetic…
Rapid rotation is a fundamental characteristic of classical Be stars and a crucial property allowing for the formation of their circumstellar disks. Past evolution in a mass and angular momentum transferring binary system offers a plausible…
Runaway stars are characterized by higher space velocities than typical field stars. They are presumed to have been ejected from their birth places by one or more energetic mechanisms, including supernova explosions. Accurate radial…
The impact of stellar rotation on the morphology of star cluster colour-magnitude diagrams is widely acknowledged. However, the physics driving the distribution of the equatorial rotation velocities of main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) stars is…
Massive stars, at least $\sim$ 10 times more massive than the Sun, have two key properties that make them the main drivers of evolution of star clusters, galaxies, and the Universe as a whole. On the one hand, the outer layers of massive…
In two papers we try to confirm that all Galactic high-mass stars are formed in a cluster environment, by excluding that O-type stars found in the Galactic field actually formed there. In de Wit et al. (2004) we presented deep K-band…
A sample of 97 galactic field Be stars were studied by taking into account the effects induced by the fast rotation on their fundamental parameters. All program stars were observed in the BCD spectrophotometric system in order to minimize…
Stellar models of massive single stars are still plagued by major uncertainties. Testing and calibrating against observations is essential for their reliability. For this purpose one preferably uses observed stars that have never…