Related papers: Stellar Sources of the Interstellar Medium
Stellar nucleosynthesis is the corner-stone of many astrophysical problems. Its understanding, which can be tested by countless observations, leads to insights into the stellar structure and evolution, and provides crucial clues to the…
The oldest stars in the universe retain to a great extent detailed information on the chemical composition of the interstellar medium at the time of their birth. Hence the earliest phases of Galactic chemical evolution and nucleosynthesis…
Cool, evolved stars are the main source of chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM), and understanding their mass loss and structure offers a unique opportunity to study the cycle of matter in the Universe. Pulsation,…
Massive stars can significantly modify the surrounding medium during their lifetime. When the stars explode as supernovae, the resulting shock wave expands within this modified medium and not within the interstellar medium. We explore the…
The most energetic part of the electromagnetic spectrum bears the purest clues to the synthesis of atomic nuclei in the universe. The decay of radioactive species, synthesized in stellar environments and ejected into the interstellar…
We present 3D hydrodynamical simulations aimed to study the dynamical and chemical evolution of the interstellar medium in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. This evolution is driven by the explosions of Type II and Type Ia supernovae, whose…
An overview is presented of the main properties of the interstellar medium. Evidence is summarized that the interstellar medium is highly turbulent, driven on different length scales by various energetic processes. Large-scale turbulence…
Recent improvements in stellar models for intermediate-mass and massive stars are recalled, together with their expectations for the synthesis of radioactive nuclei of lifetime $\tau \lesssim 25$ Myr, in order to re-examine the origins of…
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…
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,…
In a previous paper we investigated the energy transfer of massive stars to the interstellar medium as a function of time and the geometrical configuration of three massive stars via 3D-mesh-refining hydrodynamics simulations, following the…
Massive stars lose a large fraction of their original mass over the course of their evolution. These stellar winds shape the surrounding medium according to parameters that are the result of the characteristics of the stars, varying over…
Cosmic rays of kinetic energies below ~1 GeV per nucleon are thought to play a key role in the chemistry and dynamics of the interstellar medium. They are also thought to be responsible for nucleosynthesis of the light elements Li, Be, and…
The flux of neutrinos and photons originating from cosmic ray interactions with the interstellar medium in the galaxy is calculated based on current models for high energy particle interactions. The contribution from a possible dark matter…
Very massive stars occasionally expel material in colossal eruptions, driven by continuum radiation pressure rather than blast waves. Some of them rival supernovae in total radiative output, and the mass loss is crucial for subsequent…
Massive stars play a major role in the evolution of their host galaxies, and serve as important probes of the distant Universe. It has been established that the majority of massive stars reside in close binaries and will interact with their…
This paper reviews our knowledge on binary central stars of planetary nebulae and presents some personal opinions regarding their evolution. Three types of interactions are distinguished: type I, where the binary companion induces the mass…
Nuclear reactions transform atomic nuclei inside stars. This is the process of stellar nucleosynthesis. The basic concepts of determining nuclear reaction rates inside stars are reviewed. How stars manage to burn their fuel so slowly most…
Motivated by the WMAP results indicating an early epoch of reionization, we consider alternative cosmic star formation models which are capable of reionizing the early intergalactic medium. We develop models which include an early burst of…
Binary stars are as common as single stars. Binary stars are of immense importance to astrophysicists because that they allow us to determine the masses of the stars independent of their distances. They are the cornerstone of the…