Invited Presentation

Pre-supernova evolution of massive stars

Sung-Chul Yoon (SNU)

The evolution of the Universe is critically affected by massive stars in many ways. They are the main producers of ionizing photons and heavy elements in the early Universe. They regulate the star-formation history by providing momentum into the surrounding medium via stellar winds and supernova explosions. The evolution of massive stars sensitively depends on initial metallicity, rotation and binary interactions, and rigorous observational tests of stellar evolution models still remain a serious challenge because of the degeneracy in the model predictions posed by these uncertain parameters. In this talk, I will give a brief review on stellar evolution, and discuss how recent and future supernova search programs are providing the excellent observational constraints on massive star theories.