Environments of massive stars and the upper mass limit

Abstract

The locations of massive stars (> 8 Msun) within their host galaxies is reviewed. These range from distributed OB associations to dense star clusters within giant HII regions. A comparison between massive stars and the environments of core-collapse supernovae and long duration Gamma Ray Bursts is made, both at low and high redshift. We also address the question of the upper stellar mass limit, since very massive stars (VMS, Minit >> 100 Msun) may produce exceptionally bright core-collapse supernovae or pair instability supernovae.