Evolution of massive stars, supergiants and Wolf-Rayet stars

Abstract

Massive stars (say M ≳ 9 M⊙) play a major role in Astrophysics. They are the main agents of nucleosynthesis and galactic enrichment and present many interesting properties, like high stellar winds, chemical surface enhancements, instabilities etc. which deserve further investigation. Furthermore, massive stars also are the powering sources of giant H II regions and have important radiative, mechanical and chemical interactions with the interstellar medium.