Related papers: Predictions of variable mass loss for Luminous Blu…
The fate of massive stars up to 300 Msun is highly uncertain. Do these objects produce pair-instability explosions, or normal Type Ic supernovae? In order to address these questions, we need to know their mass-loss rates during their lives.…
We report the fifth confirmed Luminous Blue Variable/S Doradus variable in M31. In 2006, J004526.62+415006.3 had the spectrum of hot Fe II emission line star with strong P Cygni profiles in the Balmer lines. In 2010, its absorption line…
Luminous blue variables (LBVs) are suprisingly isolated from the massive O-type stars that are their putative progenitors in single-star evolution, implicating LBVs as binary evolution products. Aadland et al. (A19) found that LBVs are,…
We present the first systematic spectropolarimetric study of Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, in order to investigate the geometries of their winds. We find that at least half of our sample show…
The characteristics of black-hole X-ray binaries can be used to obtain information about their evolutionary history and the process of black-hole formation. In this paper I focus on systems with donor masses lower than the inferred…
In the standard view of massive star evolution, luminous blue variables (LBVs) are transitional objects between the most massive O-type stars and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. With short lifetimes, these stars should all be found near one another.…
Massive stars have strong stellar winds that direct their evolution through the upper Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and determine the black hole mass function. Secondly, wind strength dictates the atmospheric structure that sets the ionising…
Mass-loss rate is one of the most important stellar parameters. We aim to provide mass-loss rates as a function of subdwarf parameters and to apply the formula for individual subdwarfs, to predict the wind terminal velocities, to estimate…
In a recent paper, Smith and Tombleson (2015) state that the Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) in the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds are isolated; that they are not spatially associated with young O-type stars. They propose a novel…
The impact of FUSE upon the fundamental parameters of OB stars and Wolf-Rayet stars is reviewed. The stellar wind signatures available in the far-UV provide us with important additional diagnostics of effective temperature. Together with…
(shortened) The first couple of stellar generations may have been massive, of order 100 Msun, and to have played a dominant role in galaxy formation and the chemical enrichment of the early Universe. Some fraction of these objects may have…
In the final stages of stellar evolution low- to intermediate-mass stars lose their envelope in increasingly massive stellar winds. Such winds affect the interstellar medium and the galactic chemical evolution as well as the circumstellar…
The strong mass loss of Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) is thought to play a critical role in massive-star evolution, but their place in the evolutionary sequence remains debated. A key to understanding their peculiar instability is their…
Luminous Blue Variables are massive evolved stars, here we introduce this outstanding class of objects. Described are the specific characteristics, the evolutionary state and what they are connected to other phases and types of massive…
Context: Mass loss plays a dominant role in the evolution of low mass stars while they are on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB). The gas and dust ejected during this phase are a major source in the mass budget of the interstellar medium.…
Mass loss through a stellar wind is an important physical process that steers the evolution of massive stars and controls the properties of their end-of-life products, such as the supernova type and the mass of compact remnants. For an…
We present a model for steady state winds of systems with super-Eddington luminosities. These radiatively driven winds are expected to be optically thick and clumpy as they arise from an instability driven porous atmosphere. The model is…
We improve on our earlier dynamical estimate of the virial masses of the haloes of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at redshift z=3 by accounting for the effects of seeing, slit width, and observational uncertainties. From an analysis of the…
The onset of cool massive winds in evolved giants is correlated with an evolutionary feature on the red giant branch known as the bump. Also at the bump, shear instability in the star leads to magnetic fields that occur preferentially on…
Stars more massive than about 8 Msun end their lives as a Supernova (SN), an event of fundamental importance Universe-wide. Theoretically, these stars have been expected to be either at the red supergiant, blue supergiant, or Wolf-Rayet…