Selma de Mink (STScl)

Challenges for understanding the evolution of massive stars: rotation, binarity and mergers

Although they are rare and shortlived, massive stars play a large role in Universe. With large luminosities, strong stellar winds and spectacular explosions, they heat and enrich the surrounding gas clouds where new generations of stars form. With their copious outflows and explosions massive stars are cosmic engines that pump energy and mass into their surroundings and drive the evolution of galaxies. They end their lives in luminous explosions, as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts, which can be observed throughout the distant Universe. Although their importance is undisputed, our understanding of their formation and evolution remains poor in comparison to their lower mass counter parts.

I will discuss some of the major challenges for the current generation of stellar evolution models: the effects of rotation, binarity and in particular the remarkably high fraction of stellar mergers predicted by the models.