This book presents the status of research on very massive stars in the Universe. While it has been claimed that stars with over 100 solar masses existed in the very early Universe, recent studies have also discussed the existence and deaths of stars up to 300 solar masses in the local Universe. This represents a paradigm shift for the stellar upper-mass limit, which may have major implications far beyond the field of stellar physics. The book comprises 7 chapters, which describe this discipline and provide sufficient background and introductory content for graduate (PhD) students and researchers from different branches of astronomy to be able to enter this exciting new field of very massive stars.

Presents observational and theoretical papers from world experts addressing the important role in astrophysics of massive stars.

Reviews our current understanding of the life, evolution and death of massive stars; for researchers and graduate students.

Studies on the populations of luminous stars in nearby resolved galaxies have revealed a complex distribution in the luminosity–temperature plane (the HR diagram). The fundamentals of massive star evolution are mostly understood, but the roles of mass loss, episodic mass loss, rotation, and binarity are still in question. Moreover, the final stages of these stars of different masses and their possible relation to each other are not understood. The purpose of this volume is to provide a current review of the different populations of evolved massive stars. The emphasis is on massive stars in the Local Group, the Magellanic Clouds, and the nearby spirals M31 and M33.

An advanced review of how binary stars affect stellar evolution, presenting results from state-of-the art models and recent observations.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), planned for operation in about five years, will have the capability to investigate – and answer – some of the most challenging questions in astronomy. Although motivated and designed to study the very early Universe, the performance of the observatory’s instruments over a very wide wavelength range will allow the world’s scientific community unequaled ability to study cosmic phenomena as diverse as small bodies in the Solar System and the formation of galaxies. As part of preparation to use JWST, a conference was held in Tucson, Arizona in 2007 that brought together astronomers from around the world to discuss the mission, other major facilities that will operate in the coming decade, and major scientific goals for them. This book is a compilation of those presentations by some of the leading researchers from all branches of astronomy. This book also includes a “pre-history” of JWST, describing the lengthy process and some of the key individuals that initiated early work on the concepts that would evolve to become the premier space observatory of the next decade.

Star-formation is one of the key processes that shape the current state and evolution of galaxies. This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of the different methods used to measure the intensity of recent or on-going star-forming activity in galaxies, discussing their advantages and complications in detail. It includes a thorough overview of the theoretical underpinnings of star-formation rate indicators, including topics such as stellar evolution and stellar spectra, the stellar initial mass function, and the physical conditions in the interstellar medium. The authors bring together in one place detailed and comparative discussions of traditional and new star-formation rate indicators, star-formation rate measurements in different spatial scales, and comparisons of star-formation rate indicators probing different stellar populations, along with the corresponding theoretical background. This is a useful reference for students and researchers working in the field of extragalactic astrophysics and studying star-formation in local and higher-redshift galaxies.