Advanced Evolution of Massive Stars. II. Carbon Burning

This is the second in a series of papers dealing with the evolution of massive stars; the stage of hydrostatic carbon burning is discussed. A simple approximate technique for calculating energy generation and nucleosynthesis during carbon burning is presented. It is found that (1) convection outside shell sources may have a different character during neutrino-dominated evolution, (2) under the influence of neutrino emission, carbon burning produces small post-carbon-burning cores; (3) very massive stars (Ma > 64 M0 and M > 110 M0 or so) encounter the electron-pair instability, and (4) neon burning will be more important for smaller-mass stars. Comparison is made with some other recent investigations of carbon burning in stars.