Related papers: The transition from AGB to post-AGB evolution as o…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars are typified by strong dust-driven, molecular outflows. For long, it was believed that the molecular setup of the circumstellar envelope of AGB stars is primarily determined by the atmospheric C/O ratio.…
While the importance of dusty asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars to galactic chemical enrichment is widely recognised, a sophisticated understanding of the dust formation and wind-driving mechanisms has proven elusive due in part to the…
We have monitored over a ten-year interval the light variations of five evolved stars with very large mid-infrared excesses. All five objects appear to have oxygen-rich or mixed oxygen-rich and carbon-rich chemistries. They all vary in…
Cool evolved stars are known to be significant contributors to the enrichment of the interstellar medium through their dense and dusty stellar winds. High resolution observations of these outflows have shown them to possess high degrees of…
The observational data guiding the theoretical chemical evolutionary models of AGB stars come mainly from the analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic s-process enriched objects. The first are the stars of the M-MS-S-SC-C star sequence which is…
We present Spitzer Space telescope spectroscopic observations of 14 carbon-rich AGB stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud. SiC dust is seen in most of the carbon-rich stars but it is weak compared to LMC stars. The SiC feature is strong only…
We investigate the molecular and dusty environment of OH/IR stars in order to characterize the mass-loss process during the tip-AGB superwind phase. Employing the AMBER instrument at the VLT Interferometer we obtained near-infrared H- and…
We have investigated the dynamical interaction of low- and-intermediate mass stars (from 1 to 5 Msun) with their interstellar medium (ISM). In this first paper, we examine the structures generated by the stellar winds during the Asymptotic…
The intricate interplay of atmospheric shock waves and a complex, variable radiation field with non-equilibrium dust formation presents a considerable challenge to self-consistent modelling of atmospheres and winds of AGB stars.…
We study the evolution of extremely metal-poor AGB stars, with metallicities down to [Fe/H]=-5, to understand the main evolutionary properties, the efficiency of the processes able to alter their surface chemical composition and to…
CONTEXT: Asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are in one of the latest evolutionary stages of low to intermediate-mass stars. Their vigorous mass loss has a significant effect on the stellar evolution, and is a significant source of heavy…
It is still an unresolved problem how much AGB stars can contribute to the overall gas and dust enrichment processes in the interstellar medium within galaxies. We start tackling this problem, by using our test case observational data from…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) winds from evolved stars not only provide a non-trivial amount of mass and energy return, but also produce dust grains in massive elliptical galaxies. Due to the fast stellar velocity and the high ambient…
We present observations of 86 post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (post-AGB) stars of OH maser transitions, taken with the Parkes Telescope between September 2002 and August 2003. Post-AGB stars are the precursors of planetary nebulae, which have…
We present Spitzer/IRS observations of a small sample of heavily obscured IRAS sources displaying both the infrared and OH maser emission characteristic of OH/IR stars on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), but also radio continuum emission…
As part of a reanalysis of Galactic Asymptotic Giant Branch stars (hereafter AGB stars) at infrared wavelengths, we discuss here two samples (the first of carbon-rich stars, the second of S stars) for which photometry in the near- and…
Post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) binaries are surrounded by massive disks of gas and dust that are similar to protoplanetary disks around young stars. We assembled a catalog of all known Galactic post-AGB binaries with disks. We…
In this contribution we give a progress report on our systematic study of a large sample of post-AGB stars. The sample stars were selected on the basis of their infrared colours and the selection criteria were tuned to discover objects with…
In this paper,we present single stellar population models of intermediate age stellar populations where dust-enshrouded AGB stars are introduced. The formation of carbon stars is also accounted for, and is taken to be a function of both…
Winds of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are commonly assumed to be driven by radiative acceleration of dust grains. For M-type AGB stars, the nature of the wind-driving dust species has been a matter of intense debate. A proposed…