Abstract:

Here are reviewed the insights from observations at optical and infrared wavelengths for low mass limits above which stars do not seem to end as luminous supernovae. These insights are: (1) the absence in archived images of nearby galaxies of stellar progenitors of core-collapse supernovae above 16-18 M⊙, (2) the identification of luminous-massive stars that quietly disappear without optically bright supernovae, (3) the absence in the nebular spectra of supernovae of type II-P of the nucleosynthetic products expected from progenitors above 20 M⊙, (4) the absence in color magnitude diagrams of stars in the environment of historic core-collapse supernovae of stars with ≥20 M⊙. From the results in these different areas of observational astrophysics, and the recently confirmed dependence of black hole formation on metallicity and redshift of progenitors, it is concluded that a large fraction of massive stellar binaries in the universe end as binary black holes. © International Astronomical Union 2017.