1994A&A...284..477P

It has been suggested recently that, in order to avoid oxygen overproduction, stars more massive than ∼20-30 M_☉ should collapse to black holes, without contributing to the enrichment of the Galaxy with heavy elements. Using recently calculated stellar yields and an appropriate stellar initial mass function, it is shown that no such low mass limit for black hole formation can be defined, since nucleosynthesis predictions are not yet accurate enough. Stars as massive as 100 M_☉ may have contributed to galactic nucleosynthesis.