Life Cycles of Stars

The Hertzsprung-Russell
Diagram
 How Stars
Form
Collapsing
gas and
dust cloud
Protostar -
mostly
infrared
 Main Sequence Stars

Brown Dwarf (L, T, Y)

Red Dwarf (M)
Normal Star (O, B, A, F, G,
K)
All Objects Exist Because of a
Balance Between Gravity and
Some Other Force
People, Planets-Interatomic Forces
Normal Stars-Radiation
White Dwarfs-Electron Repulsion
Neutron Stars-Nuclear Forces
Quark Stars?
Black Holes-No Known Force
 Mass, Luminosity, Lifetime
Luminosity = Mass3.5 (Solar Units)
Lifetime = Mass/Luminosity = 1/Mass 2.5
Mass = .1: Lifetime = 316 (3160 b.y.)
Mass = .5: Lifetime = 5.7 (57 b.y.)
Mass = 1: Lifetime = 1 (10 b.y.)
Mass = 10: Lifetime = .003 (3 m.y)
Mass = 50: Lifetime = .000057
(570,000 yr)
 Mass,
Luminosit
y, Lifetime
 Before Stars Form
Pre-stellar cores
Protostars
Pre-main sequence star (PMS)
Planet system formation.
 Protostars or Young Stellar
Objects (YSOs)
Class 0 (T <70K) Emits in microwave range
because of opaque surrounding cloud
Class I (T = 70-650K) Emits in infrared.
Star still invisible but can detect warm
material around it.
Class II (T = 650-2880K) T Tauri stars.
Massive expulsion of material
Class III(T > 2880K) PMS stars
 Early Stars and Planets

(Class 0) Early main accretion phase

(Class I) Late accretion phase
(Class II) PMS stars with
protoplanetary disks
(Class III) PMS stars with debris disks
 Super-Massive Stars
Stars beyond a certain limit radiate
so much that they expel their outer
layers
W stars (Wolf-Rayet stars) are doing
this: T Tauri on steroids
Upper limit about 100 solar masses
More massive stars can form by
merger but dont last long
Wolf-
Rayet
Star
 How Stars Die
Main Sequence Stars Brighten With
Age
The More Massive a Star, the Faster
it Uses Fuel
Giant Phase
White Dwarf
Supernova
Neutron Star - Pulsar
Black Hole
 Leaving the Main Sequence
Helium accumulates in core of star
Fusion shuts down
Star begins to contract under gravity
Core becomes denser and hotter
Nuclear fusion resumes around helium core
Outer layers puff up enormously but cool
down
Star becomes redder and larger (Red Giant)
 Live
hard,
die
young,
leave
a good
lookin
g
corpse

Peeling
off to
the
Giant
Phase
 Later Lives of Giants
Inert helium core begins to fuse helium to
carbon and oxygen
Contraction of core stops
Outer envelope contracts and heats up
Red Giant becomes Yellow Giant
Helium core runs out of fuel
Helium fusion shell on outside of core,
hydrogen fusion above
Star loops between red and yellow on H-R
plot
 Making the Elements
Heavy nuclei: Energy from Fission
Light Nuclei: Energy from Fusion
Both end at Iron: Most stable nucleus
Stars can generate H-Fe through Fusion
How do we get beyond Fe?
Two processes
S-Process (Slow) in Red Giants
R-Process (Rapid!) in Supernovae
 Beyond Helium
He + particle = mass 5: not stable
He + He = Mass 8: Not Stable
The Mass 5-8 Bottleneck
Sometimes three He collide to make C
Li, Be, B rare in Universe
Destroyed in Stars
Created by spallation - knocking pieces off
heavier atoms
 Iron and Beyond
Build from C to Fe by fusing
successively heavier atoms
Cant Build Beyond Fe by Adding
Protons
Repulsion of nuclei = Charge1 x Charge2
He + C = O: Repulsion = 2 x 6 = 12
Fe + p = Co: Repulsion = 26 x 1 = 26
Can Add Neutrons Until Atoms Become
Unstable
n p + e (Beta Decay)
The S-Process
Building Atoms
 The R-Process
There are nuclei the s-process cant make
The process is slow
Precursors break down before next neutron
hits
Stops at Bi and Pb. Where do U and Th come
from?
The r-process piles neutrons on faster
than atoms can decay
Occurs in Supernovae
 The End Fate of Medium-
Size Stars
Core reaches limits of its ability to
sustain fusion
Fusion shells sputter and become
unstable
Star expels outermost layers as
Planetary Nebulae
Inert core left as white dwarf
Dwarf has such tiny surface area it
takes billions of years to cool
Coolest (oldest?) known: 3900 K
 Tiny Stars
Red Dwarfs are tiny but have huge
sunspots and violent flares
They have convection throughout their
interiors
Interiors uniform in composition
Do not accumulate helium in core
Can use much more of their hydrogen up
Never fuse He to C
Lifetimes longer than age of Universe
 Exploding Stars
Nova
White dwarf attracts matter from neighboring
star
Nuclear fusion resumes on surface of star
Many novae repeat at decade or longer intervals
Type I Supernova
White dwarf attracts matter from neighboring
star
White dwarf core resumes fusion
Type II Supernova
Collapse of massive single star
 Shell Structure of Massive
Star
4H > He
3He > C
He + C > O,
Ne
Ne + He, C >
O, Mg
2O > Si
2Si > Fe
 Core Collapse
Fe core collapses to neutron star in
milliseconds
Remaining star material falls in at up to
0.1c
Nuclei beyond Plutonium created
Star blows off outer layers
We see the thermonuclear core of the star
Much of the light is from radioactive
nickel
 Historical Supernovae
185 - Chinese
1006 - Chinese, one European record
1054 - Chinese, European, Anasazi?
1572 - Tychos Star
1604 - Keplers Star
1885 Andromeda Galaxy
1987 - Small Magellanic Cloud
(170,000 l.y.)
Remains of SN 1054 (Crab
Nebula)
 Life (Briefly!) Near a
Supernova
Suns Energy Output = 90 billion
megatons/second
Lets relate that to human scales. What
would that be at one kilometer
distance?
90 x 1015 tons/(150 x 106km)2 = 4 tons
Picture a truckload of explosives a km
away giving off a one-second burst of
heat and light to rival the Sun
 Now Assume the Sun Goes
Supernova
Brightens by 10 billion times
1010 = 25 magnitudes
Our 4 tons of explosive becomes
40,000 megatons
Equivalent to entire Earths nuclear
arsenal going off one km away - every
second
This energy output would last for days
 Neutron Stars and Pulsars
Mass of sun but diameter of a few km
Rotate at high speed
Sun 1,400,000 km > 10 km
Rotation speeds up 140,000 x
28 days > 17 seconds
Pulsars: infalling matter emits jets of
radiation
Millisecond pulsars: probably spun up
by accretion, or merger of neutron stars
How a Pulsar Works
 Black Holes
Singularity: gravity but no size
Event horizon (Schwarzschild radius): no
information can escape
Detectable from infalling matter, which
emits X-rays
Quantum (atom-sized) black holes may
exist
Cores of galaxies have supermassive
black holes
Black Hole
Probably Not
 Planetary Systems
Protoplanetary Disks
Accretion of Planets
Expulsion and Migration of Planets
About 400 extrasolar planets known
Our Solar System may be unusual?
Protoplanetary Disks in
Orion