The Physics of Evolved Stars: A Conference Dedicated to the Memory of Olivier Chesneau

As a talented scientist, animated with a constant passion for astronomy, Olivier Chesneau led pioneering works for the study of evolved stars, mostly using visible and infrared long-baseline interferometry. After his untimely departure in May 2015, his friends and colleagues in Nice decided to organize a conference that brings together experts in the physics of evolved stars. Olivier’s approach to tackle outstanding questions about these stars was always to get people with complementary competences together and this is what we tried to recreate to honour his memory. The conference focused on different processes in evolved stars, from the studies of mass loss to the impact of binary companions via the study of circumstellar environments and disks. A nice crowd of ~120 persons gathered in Nice to discuss state of the art observational and theoretical results related to the study of the physics of evolved stars.

This book compiles the proceedings of the conference, which was organised as a celebration of Olivier’s life, by combining some of the things Olivier liked the most: presentation of scientific results, discussions amongst scientists and music. Olivier would have loved to take part to this conference, and we hope that this will be an inspiration for many people to follow Olivier’s scientific method, best described with three words: enthusiasm, curiosity and passion.