TESS data show stochastic low-frequency variability dominates in most extreme helium stars, with characteristic timescales of 0.5-10 days correlating to stellar parameters and matching subsurface convection predictions.
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Paxton et al.,Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Convective Boundaries, Element Diffusion, and Massive Star Explosions, Astrophys
38 Pith papers cite this work, alongside 1,926 external citations. Polarity classification is still indexing.
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abstract
We update the capabilities of the software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and enhance its ease of use and availability. Our new approach to locating convective boundaries is consistent with the physics of convection, and yields reliable values of the convective core mass during both hydrogen and helium burning phases. Stars with $M<8\,{\rm M_\odot}$ become white dwarfs and cool to the point where the electrons are degenerate and the ions are strongly coupled, a realm now available to study with MESA due to improved treatments of element diffusion, latent heat release, and blending of equations of state. Studies of the final fates of massive stars are extended in MESA by our addition of an approximate Riemann solver that captures shocks and conserves energy to high accuracy during dynamic epochs. We also introduce a 1D capability for modeling the effects of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that, in combination with the coupling to a public version of the STELLA radiation transfer instrument, creates new avenues for exploring Type II supernovae properties. These capabilities are exhibited with exploratory models of pair-instability supernova, pulsational pair-instability supernova, and the formation of stellar mass black holes. The applicability of MESA is now widened by the capability of importing multi-dimensional hydrodynamic models into MESA. We close by introducing software modules for handling floating point exceptions and stellar model optimization, and four new software tools -- MESAWeb, MESA-Docker, pyMESA, and mesastar.org -- to enhance MESA's education and research impact.
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Blue straggler stars in old open clusters exhibit a Kraft break in rotation, with rapid rotators above the break and slow rotators below, indicating their envelopes behave like those of single stars.
A PSF-fitting pipeline extracts variability light curves for 91 SMC massive stars and finds that stochastic low-frequency variability morphology tracks HR-diagram position independently of metallicity.
A score-based diffusion generative model on deep infrared galaxy photometry yields a star formation rate density peaking at z=1.3 and shows distinct non-parametric star formation histories plus AGN activity peaking during the quenching transition of massive galaxies.
Radiative damping of internal gravity waves dominates tidal evolution in TOI-5882, shortening the brown dwarf's engulfment timescale by a factor of 2-6 relative to classical models.
Type Ib supernovae are systematically bluer than Type Ic supernovae in optical colors, likely due to helium-rich versus helium-poor progenitors.
Hypercritical accretion onto neutron stars embedded in massive envelopes leads to rapid collapse into black holes rather than stable Thorne-Zytkow objects.
Two long period radio transients are detached white dwarf-M dwarf binaries with matching periods, massive cool crystallized white dwarfs, low inclinations, and an estimated population of 100-2000 such systems within 2 kpc.
Dynamic Time Warping with a shared warping path across parameters aligns binary stellar tracks for accurate interpolation while preserving physical relationships such as the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Millicharged particles weaken pulsational pair-instability in massive stars, shifting the lower edge of the black hole mass gap upward and turning gravitational wave observations into a probe for particles with masses 35-200 keV and charges 10^{-10} to 10^{-9}.
Physics-based annual TSI reconstruction over three millennia yields a maximum difference of 1.04 W/m² in 50-year running means.
Population synthesis from binary evolution models predicts periodic neutron star-companion interactions in more than half of surviving hydrogen-poor core-collapse supernovae, with periods peaking at 20-50 days and lasting 0.5-10 years.
Blue straggler stars in old open clusters predominantly appear near the terminal-age main sequence because mass transfer from asymptotic giant branch donors enriches their cores with helium.
Simulations show double neutron star mergers peak 80-250 million years after star formation across metallicities, with 15% quick mergers and over 20% delayed over a billion years.
A new main-sequence evolution framework implemented in COMPAS yields more massive helium cores, more compact stripped-star radii, and systematically higher black-hole masses than standard prescriptions.
Failed common envelope mergers yield 6-14 solar mass stripped stars consistent with long-lived core He-burning objects that appear single or in wide binaries from hierarchical triples.
Enhanced AML via L2-point mass loss in the RLOF channel alters ELM WD internal structure and mass-radius relation, reproducing observed shorter orbital periods.
Stellar evolution and atmosphere models predict black hole progenitors are predominantly hot and blue with a direct-collapse rate of ~0.4 per century in a 1 Msun/yr star-forming galaxy.
Simulations across mass transfer rates from 10^-5 to 10^-1 solar masses per year find that radiatively cooled binaries develop equatorially concentrated L2 outflows and increasing cooling luminosity at high rates.
Tertiary in EM Boo is A-F type with Teff=7000K; system distance ~300 pc indicates Gaia DR3 underestimates true distance due to multiplicity.
MESA grid models find HD 20794 is a 0.80 solar-mass star aged ~9 Gyr whose observed abundances match core-collapse supernova enrichment and are preserved over Gyr timescales.
Deep Keck/NIRC2 adaptive optics imaging rules out a helium star companion to PSR J1928+1815, supporting a massive white dwarf with possible wind-driven eclipses.
Stellar models show that the 12C(alpha,gamma)16O rate uncertainty moves the black hole mass gap, constraining its S300 to 137.6-263.4 keV barn when matched to the observed gap from gravitational waves.
Eruptive mass loss in red supergiants increases linearly with metallicity, calibrated via by-eye fits to Local Group luminosity functions, preventing initial masses above about 20 solar masses from reaching the red supergiant phase.
citing papers explorer
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TESS Observations of Stochastic Low-frequency Variability in Extreme Helium Stars
TESS data show stochastic low-frequency variability dominates in most extreme helium stars, with characteristic timescales of 0.5-10 days correlating to stellar parameters and matching subsurface convection predictions.
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Blue Straggler Stars in Old Open Clusters and the Kraft Break
Blue straggler stars in old open clusters exhibit a Kraft break in rotation, with rapid rotators above the break and slow rotators below, indicating their envelopes behave like those of single stars.
-
Binarity at LOw Metallicity (BLOeM): massive star variability revealed using a novel software tool for point-spread function fitting of TESS images
A PSF-fitting pipeline extracts variability light curves for 91 SMC massive stars and finds that stochastic low-frequency variability morphology tracks HR-diagram position independently of metallicity.
-
pop-cosmos: Star formation over 12 Gyr from generative modelling of a deep infrared-selected galaxy catalogue
A score-based diffusion generative model on deep infrared galaxy photometry yields a star formation rate density peaking at z=1.3 and shows distinct non-parametric star formation histories plus AGN activity peaking during the quenching transition of massive galaxies.
-
The Tale of a Hungry Subgiant and Its Brown Dwarf: Interior Radiative Damping Dominates the Tidal Evolution of TOI-5882
Radiative damping of internal gravity waves dominates tidal evolution in TOI-5882, shortening the brown dwarf's engulfment timescale by a factor of 2-6 relative to classical models.
-
Type Ib Supernovae are bluer than Type Ic Supernovae
Type Ib supernovae are systematically bluer than Type Ic supernovae in optical colors, likely due to helium-rich versus helium-poor progenitors.
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Hyperaccreting Neutron Stars inside Massive Envelopes: The Implausibility of Thorne-\.Zytkow Objects
Hypercritical accretion onto neutron stars embedded in massive envelopes leads to rapid collapse into black holes rather than stable Thorne-Zytkow objects.
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White dwarf + M dwarf Detached Binaries in Long Period Radio Transients: Observed Binary Parameters, Evolution, and Population Constraints
Two long period radio transients are detached white dwarf-M dwarf binaries with matching periods, massive cool crystallized white dwarfs, low inclinations, and an estimated population of 100-2000 such systems within 2 kpc.
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Irregularly Sampled Time Series Interpolation for Binary Evolution Simulations Using Dynamic Time Warping
Dynamic Time Warping with a shared warping path across parameters aligns binary stellar tracks for accurate interpolation while preserving physical relationships such as the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
-
The Black Hole Mass Gap as a New Probe of Millicharged Particles
Millicharged particles weaken pulsational pair-instability in massive stars, shifting the lower edge of the black hole mass gap upward and turning gravitational wave observations into a probe for particles with masses 35-200 keV and charges 10^{-10} to 10^{-9}.
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Reconstruction of annual solar irradiance over the last three millennia
Physics-based annual TSI reconstruction over three millennia yields a maximum difference of 1.04 W/m² in 50-year running means.
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Neutron star-companion interaction in core collapse supernovae. Population synthesis based on detailed binary evolution models
Population synthesis from binary evolution models predicts periodic neutron star-companion interactions in more than half of surviving hydrogen-poor core-collapse supernovae, with periods peaking at 20-50 days and lasting 0.5-10 years.
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The Distribution of Blue Straggler Stars in the Color-Magnitude Diagrams of Old Open Clusters
Blue straggler stars in old open clusters predominantly appear near the terminal-age main sequence because mass transfer from asymptotic giant branch donors enriches their cores with helium.
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Double Neutron Star Delay Times Across Cosmic Metallicities: The Role of Helium Star Progenitors
Simulations show double neutron star mergers peak 80-250 million years after star formation across metallicities, with 15% quick mergers and over 20% delayed over a billion years.
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Evolution of Massive Main-sequence Stars in Rapid Population Synthesis. I. Framework and Implementation
A new main-sequence evolution framework implemented in COMPAS yields more massive helium cores, more compact stripped-star radii, and systematically higher black-hole masses than standard prescriptions.
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Mergers via failed common envelope as a route towards intermediate-mass stripped stars
Failed common envelope mergers yield 6-14 solar mass stripped stars consistent with long-lived core He-burning objects that appear single or in wide binaries from hierarchical triples.
-
Formation of extremely low-mass white dwarf binaries undergoing enhanced angular momentum loss
Enhanced AML via L2-point mass loss in the RLOF channel alters ELM WD internal structure and mass-radius relation, reproducing observed shorter orbital periods.
-
Hot blue progenitors of stellar-mass black holes
Stellar evolution and atmosphere models predict black hole progenitors are predominantly hot and blue with a direct-collapse rate of ~0.4 per century in a 1 Msun/yr star-forming galaxy.
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Radiatively Cooled Binary Mass Transfer: Flow Structure, Luminosities, and L2 Outflows Across Mass Transfer Rates
Simulations across mass transfer rates from 10^-5 to 10^-1 solar masses per year find that radiatively cooled binaries develop equatorially concentrated L2 outflows and increasing cooling luminosity at high rates.
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Spectroscopic Disentangling Revealed the Tertiary Component in the Multiple System EM Boo
Tertiary in EM Boo is A-F type with Teff=7000K; system distance ~300 pc indicates Gaia DR3 underestimates true distance due to multiplicity.
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A Theoretical Study of the Structure and Elemental Abundances of HD 20794
MESA grid models find HD 20794 is a 0.80 solar-mass star aged ~9 Gyr whose observed abundances match core-collapse supernova enrichment and are preserved over Gyr timescales.
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Deep Adaptive Optics Imaging Rules Out a Helium Star Companion to PSR J1928+1815
Deep Keck/NIRC2 adaptive optics imaging rules out a helium star companion to PSR J1928+1815, supporting a massive white dwarf with possible wind-driven eclipses.
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Constraints on the $^{12}$C$(\alpha, \gamma)^{16}$O and $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O Reaction Rates from Binary Black Holes Detected via Gravitational Wave Signals
Stellar models show that the 12C(alpha,gamma)16O rate uncertainty moves the black hole mass gap, constraining its S300 to 137.6-263.4 keV barn when matched to the observed gap from gravitational waves.
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Calibrating Eruptive Mass Loss in Red Supergiants with Local Group Data
Eruptive mass loss in red supergiants increases linearly with metallicity, calibrated via by-eye fits to Local Group luminosity functions, preventing initial masses above about 20 solar masses from reaching the red supergiant phase.
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Revisiting the Perseus Cluster II: Metallicity-Dependence of Massive Stars and Chemical Enrichment History
New CCSN yield tables at varying metallicities are inserted into galactic chemical evolution models and tuned to reproduce the Si-group and Fe-group abundances measured by Hitomi in the Perseus Cluster.
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Diagnosing the Properties and Evolutionary Fates of Black Hole and Wolf-Rayet X-ray Binaries as Potential Gravitational Wave Sources for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Network
MESA binary evolution simulations with revised Bondi-Hoyle accretion efficiency and observational constraints yield lower BH mass upper limits for IC 10 X-1 and NGC 300 X-1 and predict Hubble-time BBH mergers for all three systems.
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The impact of new ($\alpha$, n) reaction rates on the weak s-process in metal-poor massive stars
New 17O+α and 22Ne+α rates increase weak s-process yields by tens of times in Z=10^{-3} stars of 15-30 solar masses.
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Toward a Comprehensive Grid of Cepheid Models with MESA. IV. Modest Effects of Rotation on Blue Loops
Rotation produces only modest changes to blue loop luminosity and extent in MESA Cepheid models and cannot fix the mass discrepancy without substantial main-sequence overshooting.
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Analysis of DQZ White Dwarf Evolution through Procyon
MESA grid models of Procyon A and B give a system age of 2.23 Gyr, white dwarf cooling age of 1.20 Gyr, and map the progenitor to the 1.9-2.6 solar mass range with higher core overshoot than standard.
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On the origin of variability in $\alpha$ Cygni variable $\epsilon$ Ori (HD 37128) using TESS observations and modelling
Linear stability analysis and non-linear hydrodynamical simulations link the stochastic low-frequency variability of ε Ori to strange-mode instabilities that excite finite-amplitude pulsations.
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Modeling of the magnetic stellar wind braking of the ssrAp 33 Lib (HD137949)
Magnetic wind braking can slow ssrAp stars like 33 Lib to rotation periods of 80 years or more according to MESA evolution models that include magnetic field and wind changes.
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Probing Red Giant Interiors with G-Dominated Mixed Modes I: The Cases of KIC 9145955, KIC 9970396, KIC 9882316 and KIC 11968334
Asteroseismic fits to g-dominated mixed modes in four red giants suggest convective overshooting rises with mass and yield a core rotation rate of 0.7409 μHz for KIC 11968334.
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A Path to Constraints on Common Envelope Ejection in Massive Binaries: Full Evolutionary Reconstruction of Three Black Hole X-ray Binaries
Reconstruction of GRO J1655-40, SAX J1819.3-2525 and 4U 1543-47 requires CE efficiencies α_0.5U ≳6.7, α_U ≳4.2, α_H ≳1.7 with no solutions below unity, implying need for additional energy or formalism changes plus natal kicks ≳50 km/s for 4U 1543-47.
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An Updated SynthPop Model for Microlensing Simulations I: Model Description & Evaluation
An updated SynthPop model matches most bulge stellar and kinematic data but overpredicts optical microlensing event rates by about 20 percent near the galactic plane.
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Testing models for fully and partially stripped low-mass stars with Gaia: Implications for hot subdwarfs, binary RR Lyrae, and black hole impostors
Simulations overpredict hot subdwarf and RR Lyrae binaries with Gaia astrometric solutions but match red clump stars with high mass functions as potential black hole impostors, implying fewer au-scale RR Lyrae binaries than expected.
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Simulations of Interacting Binary Systems -- Pathways to Radio Bright GRB Progenitors
Binary evolution simulations identify short (20-500 days) and long (2000-4000 days) orbital period ranges where massive star-black hole systems retain enough angular momentum for GRB jet production with negligible mass loss.
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Red novae, their progenitors, and remnants
A synthesis of observational data on red novae as stellar merger events, including outburst properties, progenitor diversity, and long-term remnants.
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