Very Massive Stars in the Local Universe

Abstract

Recent studies suggest the existence of very massive stars (VMS) up to 300 solar masses in the local Universe. As this finding may represent a paradigm shift for the canonical stellar upper-mass limit of 150 solar masses, it is timely to evaluate the physics specific to VMS, which is currently missing. For this reason, we decided to construct a book entailing both a discussion of the accuracy of VMS masses (Martins), as well as the physics of VMS formation (Krumholz), mass loss (Vink), instabilities (Owocki), evolution (Hirschi), and fate (theory -- Woosley & Heger; observations -- Smith).

8 pages, Introductory Chapter to the Book on Very Massive Stars in the Local Universe, Springer, Ed. Jorick S. Vink

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
• Metallicity-dependent wind parameter predictions for OB stars
• The metallicity dependence of envelope inflation in massive stars
• Fast evolving pair-instability supernova models: evolution, explosion, light curves
• The Efficiency of Stellar Reionization: Effects of Rotation, Metallicity, and Initial Mass Function
• Possible pair-instability supernovae at solar metallicity from magnetic stellar progenitors
• INFERNO: Galactic winds in dwarf galaxies with star-by-star simulations including runaway stars
• Weighing Melnick 34: the most massive binary system known
• Spectroscopic evolution of very massive stars at Z = 1/2.5 Zsun
• Inferring the presence of very massive stars in local star-forming regions
• SN 2017ivv: two years of evolution of a transitional Type II supernova
• Extreme broad He\2 emission at high and low redshifts: the dominant role of VMS in NGC 3125-A1 and CDFS131717
• The Tarantula Massive Binary Monitoring project: II. A first SB2 orbital and spectroscopic analysis for the Wolf-Rayet binary R145
• The Discovery of a Very Massive Star in W49
• The sharp ALMA view of infall and outflow in the massive protocluster G31.41+0.31
• Detection of LIGO-Virgo binary black holes in the pair-instability mass gap
• Disentangling the Black Hole Mass Spectrum with Photometric Microlensing Surveys
• On the diversity of strongly-interacting Type IIn supernovae
• The Neutrino Signal From Pair Instability Supernovae
• Wind Collision and Accretion Simulations of the Massive Binary System HD 166734
• Very massive stars at low metallicity: evolution, synthetic spectroscopy, and impact on the integrated light of starbursts
• The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey
• EDGE-INFERNO: How chemical enrichment assumptions impact the individual stars of a simulated ultra-faint dwarf galaxy
• Methods to Test the Source of the Extreme Gas Motions in WS 35
• Spatially resolved properties for extremely metal-poor star-forming galaxies with Wolf-Rayet features and high-ionization lines