On the mass of supernova progenitors

Stars may follow different evolutionary tracks along which various branching points bring them to very different final destinies, among which several kinds of supernova explosions with or without compact remnants, such as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Nevertheless, in spite of this diversity, the end point of the evolution always coincides with the development of strong electron degeneracy within the stellar core. In this paper we demonstrate that this is an unavoidable destiny for any star, independently of its initial mass and composition, and we show how the peculiar equation of state of degenerate electrons determines the different stellar evolution epilogues.