Publication Abstracts

Stothers and Chin 1985

Stothers, R.B., and C.-W. Chin, 1985: Stellar evolution at high mass with convective core overshooting. Astrophys. J., 292, 222-227, doi:10.1086/163150.

Convective overshooting beyond the formal boundary of a convectively unstable stellar core is studied here in terms of a free overshoot parameter d/HP (overshoot distance divided by local pressure scale height) in order to determine in more detail than previously the effect of widespread convective core mixing on the main-sequence evolution of stars in the mass range 15-120 M☉. For values of d/HP within a critical range that depends sensitively on stellar mass, an evolving star expands its radius enormously and can become a red supergiant before the end of core hydrogen burning if M ≥ 60 M☉. Since convective instability in the envelopes of main-sequence stars more massive than -15 M☉ is only partly suppressed by convective core overshooting, the unresolved problem of semiconvection in the chemically inhomogeneous zone still exists (except in cases where mass loss is sufficiently heavy to suppress the instability).

Comparison of theoretically constructed isochrones for very young star clusters with observed mainsequence turnups in the H-R diagram strongly suggests that a significant amount of convective core overshooting (or some other form of mixing) increases the luminosities and decreases the effective temperatures of evolving stars of high mass. Our results thus support the similar conclusions reached by Maeder and Mermilliod, who considered only stars of intermediate mass. However, a number of difficult problems of interpreting the observations remain.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{st04120g,
  author={Stothers, R. B. and Chin, C.-W.},
  title={Stellar evolution at high mass with convective core overshooting},
  year={1985},
  journal={Astrophys. J.},
  volume={292},
  pages={222--227},
  doi={10.1086/163150},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - st04120g
AU  - Stothers, R. B.
AU  - Chin, C.-W.
PY  - 1985
TI  - Stellar evolution at high mass with convective core overshooting
JA  - Astrophys. J.
VL  - 292
SP  - 222
EP  - 227
DO  - 10.1086/163150
ER  -

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