Intermediate Mass Stars <--> Massive Stars. A workshop around causes and consequences of differing evolutionary paths

TL;DR

This workshop explored the complex evolution of intermediate and massive stars, focusing on their classification, boundary definitions, and roles in chemical enrichment, highlighting new collaborations and future research directions.

Contribution

It synthesized recent advances and discussions on the evolution and classification of intermediate and massive stars, fostering new collaborations and identifying key research questions.

Findings

Boundary between intermediate and massive stars is not well defined.

Objects near the boundary have complex evolutionary paths.

Workshop discussions led to new collaborative research initiatives.

Abstract

The post-main sequence evolution of stars of intermediate or large masses is notoriously complex. In the recent past, a number of workshops and meetings have focused on either the Asymptotic Giant Branch of intermediate mass stars, or the evolution of massive stars. But how well defined is the boundary between these categories of objects defined? How would an observer proceed to classify stars into one or the other category? How do objects near the boundary evolve, die, and contribute to the chemical evolution of their environment? During this 3-day international workshop, 26 high quality presentations were given by specialists in the relevant fields of astrophysics, and stimulating discussions followed. It is technically impossible to provide an exhaustive census of the results and ideas that emerged. In this brief article, we choose to point to key elements of the workshop, some of which are now the topic of new collaborations and will lead to publications elsewhere. For the sake of brevity, we deliberately cite only the contributors to the workshop and no external references. Many bibliographic references can be found in the original presentations, which can be retrieved through: http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/observatoire/obs/stars2009/stars2009.html The programme workshop, which includes the titles of the individual contributions, is provided as an appendix.