Life and Death of Very Massive Stars

Details Life and Death of Very Massive Stars Life and Death of Very Massive Stars

2010-12-16

arxiv.org/abs/1012.3649v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

6 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the 11th Symposium of Nuclei in the Cosmos, July 19-23 2010, Heidelberg, Germany

Scientific paper

We recently determined the mass of the most massive star known to the date, R136a1 with a mass at birth 320 times the mass of our sun, as well as the mass of several other stars that are more massive than 150 M. Such massive stars (~150-300 M) may end their life as pair-instability supernovae (PISN) if they retain enough mass until they die. We have calculated a grid of stellar evolution models in order to investigate the impact of mass loss and rotation on the evolution and fate of these very massive stars. As mass loss is very strong at solar metallicity, our models predict that most of the very massive stars will die as type Ic SNe. Only slowly and non-rotating stars at metallicities below that of the LMC might retain enough mass to produce a PISN. This would mean that the first stellar generations might have produced PISN although their chemical signature is not observed in extremely metal poor stars in the halo of our galaxy.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Life and Death of Very Massive Stars does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Life and Death of Very Massive Stars, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Life and Death of Very Massive Stars will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-219572