The carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios of pre-solar SiC grains of type A+B suggest a proton-limited nucleosynthetic process as encountered, for instance, during the very late thermal pulse of post-AGB stars. We study the nuclear processes during this phase and find carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios which can reproduce those of A+B grains. These results are still preliminary because they depend on uncertain factors such as the details of mixing during the post-AGB thermal pulse, the rates of some nuclear reactions, and the assumptions on mixing during the progenitor AGB phase.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0202167,
title = {Could SiC A+B grains have originated in a post-AGB thermal pulse?},
author = {Falk Herwig and Sachiko Amari and Maria Lugaro and Ernst Zinner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0202167},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
2 pages, 2 figures, poster presented at IAU Symp 209 "Planetary Nebulae"