English

ATOMIUM: Molecular inventory of 17 oxygen-rich evolved stars observed with ALMA

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2024-11-26 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

The dusty winds of cool evolved stars are a major contributor of the newly synthesised material enriching the Galaxy and future generations of stars. However, the details of the physics and chemistry behind dust formation and wind launching have yet to be pinpointed. Recent spatially resolved observations show the importance of gaining a more comprehensive view of the circumstellar chemistry, but a comparative study of the intricate interplay between chemistry and physics is still difficult because observational details such as frequencies and angular resolutions are rarely comparable. Aiming to overcome these deficiencies, ATOMIUM is an ALMA Large Programme to study the physics and chemistry of the circumstellar envelopes of a diverse set of oxygen-rich evolved stars under homogeneous observing conditions at three angular resolutions between ~0.02"-1.4". Here we summarize the molecular inventory of these sources, and the correlations between stellar parameters and molecular content. Seventeen oxygen-rich or S-type asymptotic giant branch (AGB) and red supergiant (RSG) stars have been observed in several tunings with ALMA Band 6, targeting a range of molecules to probe the circumstellar envelope and especially the chemistry of dust formation close to the star. We systematically assigned the molecular carriers of the spectral lines and measured their spectroscopic parameters and the angular extent of the emission of each line from integrated intensity maps. Across the ATOMIUM sample, we detect 291 transitions of 24 different molecules and their isotopologues. This includes several first detections in oxygen-rich AGB/RSG stars: PO v=1, SO2 v1=1 and v2=2, and several high energy H2O transitions. We also find several first detections in S-type AGB stars: vibrationally excited HCN v2=2,3 and SiS v=4,5,6, as well as first detections of the molecules SiC, AlCl, and AlF in W Aql...

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.03467,
  title  = {ATOMIUM: Molecular inventory of 17 oxygen-rich evolved stars observed with ALMA},
  author = {S. H. J. Wallstrom and T. Danilovich and H. S. P. Muller and C. A. Gottlieb and S. Maes and M. Van de Sande and L. Decin and A. M. S. Richards and A. Baudry and J. Bolte and T. Ceulemans and F. De Ceuster and A. de Koter and I. El Mellah and M. Esseldeurs and S. Etoka and D. Gobrecht and E. Gottlieb and M. Gray and F. Herpin and M. Jeste and D. Kee and P. Kervella and T. Khouri and E. Lagadec and J. Malfait and L. Marinho and I. McDonald and K. M. Menten and T. J. Millar and M. Montarges and J. A. Nuth and J. M. C. Plane and R. Sahai and L. B. F. M. Waters and K. T. Wong and J. Yates and A. Zijlstra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.03467},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

19 pages plus appendices, forthcoming publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics