Ah! Thank you! I think I understand now - just read about carbon detonation, so I guess it's like when a white dwarf in binary collapses from mass transfer, but it happens inside the star. So the star doesn't even need to heat the core up enough if it's above ~1.4 SM, because whatever happens...
Yeh I know, but I'm not modelling it in that much depth - I'm simplifying lots and assuming things ie. the molecular cloud is 100% hydrogen, the star's luminosity = (mass^3.5 / mass of sun ^ 3.5) * luminosity of the sun, etc and so far it's pretty accurate. It's only for my physics teacher to...
I am writing a program which simulates the evolution of stars for my A2 computing project, and need help understanding what happens after the hydrogen in the core has been fused, because I have read a lot of contradictory information.
My understanding is:
For a low mass star (~1 SM)...