Evolution and Nucleosynthesis of Very Massive Stars

Understand

In this chapter, after a brief introduction and overview of stellar evolution, we discuss the evolution and nucleosynthesis of very massive stars (VMS: M>100 solar masses) in the context of recent stellar evolution model calculations.

• This chapter covers the following aspects: general properties, evolution of surface properties, late central evolution, and nucleosynthesis including their dependence on metallicity, mass loss and rotation.
• Since very massive stars have very large convective cores during the main-sequence phase, their evolution is not so much affected by rotational mixing, but more by mass loss through stellar winds.
• Their evolution is never far from a homogeneous evolution even without rotational mixing.