Related papers: Observational Constraints to the Evolution of Mass…
Massive stars influence the surrounding universe far out of proportion to their numbers through ionizing radiation, supernova explosions, and heavy element production. Their formation requires the collapse of massive interstellar gas clouds…
Abundance analyses of stars with planets have revealed that their metallicities are enhanced relative to field stars. Such a trend was originally suggested to be due to accretion of iron-rich planetary material. Based on this assumption, we…
Exo-planets are preferentially found around high metallicity main sequence stars. We aim at investigating whether evolved stars share this property, and what this tells about planet formation. Statistical tools and the basic concepts of…
Our understanding of large amplitude pulsating stars and their status in stellar evolution is briefly reviewed. The paper then describes the near-infrared light curves of various asymptotic giant branch stars, concentrating on possible…
The kinematics and elemental abundances of resolved stars in the nearby Universe can be used to infer conditions at high redshift, trace how galaxies evolve and constrain the nature of dark matter. This approach is complementary to direct…
This chapter concentrates on the deaths of very massive stars, the events leading up to their deaths, and how mass loss affects the resulting death. The previous three chapters emphasized the theory of wind mass loss, eruptions, and core…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
Stellar evolution models are a cornerstone of young star astrophysics, which necessitates that they yield accurate and reliable predictions of stellar properties. Here, I review the current performance of stellar evolution models against…
In spite of significant recent and ongoing research efforts, most of the early evolution and long-term fate of young massive star clusters remain clouded in uncertainties. Here, I discuss our understanding of the initial conditions of star…
Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ~100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local…
The existence of supermassive black holes is supported by a growing body of observations. Supermassive black holes and their formation events are likely candidates for detection by proposed long-wavelength, space-based gravitational wave…
I compare theoretical models of massive star formation with observations of the Orion Hot Core, which harbors one of the closest massive protostars. Although this region is complicated, many of its features (size, luminosity, accretion…
It is currently impossible to determine the abundances of stellar populations star-by-star in dense stellar systems more distant than a few megaparsecs. Therefore, methods to analyse the composite light of stellar systems are required. I…
This chapter reviews progress in the field of massive star formation. It focuses on evidence for accretion and current models that invoke high accretion rates. In particular it is noted that high accretion rates will cause the massive young…
At metallicities lower than that of the Small Magellanic Cloud, it remains essentially unexplored how fossil magnetic fields, forming large-scale magnetospheres, could affect the evolution of massive stars, thereby impacting the fundamental…
The evolution of masses and sizes of passive (early-type) galaxies with redshift provides ideal constraints to galaxy formation models. These parameters can in principle be obtained for large galaxy samples from multi-band photometry alone.…
Massive stars are strong sources of far-ultraviolet radiation that can be hostile to the evolution of protoplanetary disks, driving mass loss by external photoevaporation and shortening disk-dissipation timescales. Their effect may also…
Nearby companions alter the evolution of massive stars in binary systems. Using a sample of Galactic massive stars in nearby young clusters, we simultaneously measure all intrinsic binary characteristics relevant to quantify the frequency…
These notes collect together current work on the effect of the environment on galaxy formation and evolution. They are broken into four distinct parts. The first deals with the observational debate surrounding the question of whether…
Massive stars are linked with diverse astronomical processes and objects including star formation, supernovae and their remnants, cosmic rays, interstellar media, and galaxy evolution. Understanding their properties is of primary importance…