The impact of new-generation radiative opacities on evolutionary models of massive stars

The opacity of stellar matter plays a critical role in the structure and evolution of all types of stars, but it is also one of the main sources of uncertainties in stellar evolution computations. For this reason, several new datasets of radiative opacities for astrophysical applications have been published over the years. In this thesis, we explore the impact of revised opacity data coupled with a recently developed interpolation method that accounts for the evolution of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen mass fractions and can therefore better follow the change in stellar structure due to great variations in the abundance mixture of the stellar plasma. We apply this new tool to follow the evolution of massive star models computed with the Padova and Trieste Stellar Evolution Code (PARSEC) for three different initial metallicities. Moreover, we also consider the effects of Envelope Overshooting with different opacity values on the evolution and final fate of very massive stars.