G. E. Brown, C. -H. Lee, R. A. M. J. Wijers, H. A. Bethe
Published 1999-10-05Version 1
In this article we consider the formation and evolution of black holes, especially those in binary stars where radiation from the matter falling on them can be seen. We consider a number of effects introduced by some of us, which are not traditionally included in binary evolution of massive stars. These are (i) hypercritical accretion, which allows neutron stars to accrete enough matter to collapse to a black hole during their spiral-in into another star. (ii) the strong mass loss of helium stars, which causes their evolution to differ from that of the helium core of a massive star. (iii) The direct formation of low-mass black holes ($M\sim2\msun$) from single stars, a consequence of a significant strange-matter content of the nuclear-matter equation of state at high density. We discuss these processes here, and then review how they affect various populations of binaries with black holes and neutron stars.
Comments: 46 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Physics Report
On the Role of Massive Stars in the Support and Destruction of Giant Molecular Clouds
On the formation of low-mass black holes in massive binary stars
Combined stellar structure and atmosphere models for massive stars II. Spectral evolution on the main sequence
