We present models for the complete life and death of a 60 \mathrm { M } _ { \odot } star evolving in a close binary system , from the main sequence phase to the formation of a compact remnant and fallback of supernova debris .
After core hydrogen exhaustion , the star expands , loses most of its envelope by Roche lobe overflow , and becomes a Wolf-Rayet star .
We study its post-mass transfer evolution as a function of the Wolf-Rayet wind mass loss rate ( which is currently not well constrained and will probably vary with initial metallicity of the star ) .
Varying this mass loss rate by a factor 6 leads to stellar masses at collapse that range from 3.1 \mathrm { M } _ { \odot } up to 10.7 \mathrm { M } _ { \odot } .
Due to different carbon abundances left by core helium burning , and non-monotonic effects of the late shell burning stages as function of the stellar mass , we find that , although the iron core masses at collapse are generally larger for stars with larger final masses , they do not depend monotonically on the final stellar mass or even the C/O-core mass .
We then compute the evolution of all models through collapse and bounce .
The results range from strong supernova explosions ( { E _ { \mathrm { kin } } } > { 10 ^ { 51 } } { \mathrm { erg } } ) for the lower final masses to the direct collapse of the star into a black hole for the largest final mass .
Correspondingly , the final remnant masses , which were computed by following the supernova evolution and fallback of material for a time scale of about one year , are between 1.2 \mathrm { M } _ { \odot } and 10 \mathrm { M } _ { \odot } .
We discuss the remaining uncertainties of this result and outline the consequences of our results for the understanding of the progenitor evolution of X-ray binaries and gamma-ray burst models .