Si nous ne faisions pas les choses dans la passion, nous ne ferions rien (Le Cardinal d'Espagne, Henri Millon de Montherlant).

Manuel Forestini spent 10 years at the Grenoble University. Most of his research activities during this decade appear in the following chapters of this book. My contribution focuses on Manuel's teaching activities and his active implication as a member of Grenoble University.

We describe in a brief form present results we have obtained from a careful and up to date study of the evolution of massive stars including their advanced evolutionary phases beyond the oxygen burning phase. We describe the effects of mass loss, treatment of convection in inhomogeneous stellar layers and the rate of the 12C(α, γ)16O reaction on the properties of stellar models in the interesting case of a 25 M๏ star of solar-like initial metallicity.

Binary stars are abundant. We describe their orbits and the effects of tides and introduce the concept of the Roche lobe and mass transfer. We illustrate binary star evolution with Algols, cataclysmic variables and type Ia supernovae as examples.


Some important features of current stellar yields of CNO elements are discussed, with particular emphasis on recent results concerning rotating and mass losing stars. These yields may help to interpret relevant observations in the local Galaxy, the Milky Way disk and extragalactic systems, like extragalactic HII regions and Damped Lyman Alpha systems (DLAs).


In this contribution, I will focus on two nuclides, 26Al and 19F whose origin has been uncertain for a long time and still remains a matter of debate. I will present the contribution of Manuel Forestini to the understanding of the origin of these nuclides, and in particular to the description of their synthesis in asymptotic giant branch stars. I will also present an overview of the latest results concerning 26Al and 19F and of the open questions still to be answered.

The inclusion of rotation in massive star models improves the agreement between theory and observations in many respects that are briefly recalled here. Rotational mixing, by changing the chemical profiles in the stellar interiors, has important impacts on nucleosynthesis. We shall first discuss the case of solar metallicity models and then explore consequences both in the high and very low metallicity ranges. The effects in very metal–poor stars are spectacular and give new insights on the evolution of the early star generations in the Universe.

The evolution of stars in the mass range 7–12 M๏ is characterized by the off-center ignition of carbon in condition of partially degeneracy followed by the propagation of a convectively bound flame and the formation of a neon-oxygen core. In this chapter, we review the evolutionary features of these peculiar stars and pay a special attention to the thermally pulsing super-AGB phase and associated nucleosynthesis. The evolution toward electron capture supernovae for the most massive members of this class is briefly mentioned. In light of new computations, we also discuss the question of Mup, the critical mass above which carbon ignites as well as Mn, the minimum mass for the formation of a neutron star and analyze the dependence of these transition masses on metallicity.

Low-mass stars (<2–2.5 M๏) exhibit, at all the stages of their evolution, signatures of processes that require challenging modeling beyond the standard stellar theory. In this paper we focus on their peculiarities while they climb the red giant branch (RGB). We first review canonical evolution along the RGB and compare the classicle predictions of the so-called first dredge-up with observational data in various environments. We show how clear spectroscopic diagnostics probe the nucleosynthesis and the internal mixing mechanisms that drive RGB stars. Coherent data reveal in particular the existence of a nonstandard and shallow mixing process that changes the surface abundances at the so-called RGB bump. We discuss the current understanding of the connection between this extra-mixing and stellar rotation and conclude on the remaining open questions.

The common way to build stellar models is to treat the radiation zones as inert, stable regions, in contrast with the well mixed convection zones. This allows to account for the main features of stellar evolution, such as the main sequence and the existence of red giants. But there are many indications that some mixing occurs within the radiation zones, and that it has an impact on the later stages. 
Manuel Forestini was one the first to undertake the implementation of such mixing in his stellar code, and thus to go beyond the standard model. Here I will briefly describe the mixing processes that are likely to operate in stellar radiation zones, as we understand them today, and discuss how well they account for the observed properties of stars.


An approach to describe dust forming circumstellar shells around pulsating Asymptotic Giant Branch stars is presented with the aim of understanding the mass-loss mechanism of these objects. The resulting model structures are discussed and the model predictions are compared with suitable observations. Finally, some implications of the mass-loss process on the evolution of the mass-losing star are discussed.

We present a summary of the extensive problems posed by the curious abundance correlations seen in stars in Galactic globular clusters. We discuss three scenarios, and conclude that only one seems to be consistent with the observations. Even this is still rather unsatisfying from many viewpoints. We determine the kind of nucleosynthesis required and discuss AGB stars as the possible source. Some calculations seem to rule out AGB stars and others seem to favour them. The reasons for the differences are discussed. No satisfying conclusion is reached!


The recent discovery of microscopic grains of presolar origin in primitive meteorites has opened a new field of astrophysics where scientists from different disciplines, from nuclear physics to astronomy, chemistry and mineralogy, are required to work together. In this inter-disciplinary field information on the composition of stars is obtained through laboratory analysis of meteoritic rocks. We review the main features of the composition of presolar SiC and oxide grains that are believed to have originated in Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. High-precision laboratory measurements of the isotopic composition of these types of presolar grains represent the most detailed record of the composition of AGB stars, and thus a major constraint for the theoretical models of these stars. In particular, the CNO and Al/Mg compositions can set constraints on extra-mixing processes in red giant and AGB stars. The composition of heavy elements produced by slow neutron captures (s-process) yields a variety of information on the grain parent stars, including their masses and the way neutron sources operate.