Related papers: Imaging the circumstellar dust distribution around…
The recent progress in high-spatial-resolution techniques, spanning wavelengths from the visual to the radio regime, is leading to new valuable insights into the complex dynamical atmospheres of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars and their…
Recent morphological studies of galaxies by the {\it Hubble Space Telescope (HST)} have revealed that actively star-forming galaxies at intermediate and high redshifts ($z=0.5-2.0$) have very clumpy and irregular distributions of stars. It…
In order to determine the composition of the dust in the circumstellar envelopes of oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars we have computed a grid of modust radiative-transfer models for a range of dust compositions, mass-loss…
The bright southern star L2 Pup is a particularly prominent asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star, as its distance of 64 pc makes it the nearest of its type. We report new adaptive optics observations of L2 Pup at visible wavelengths with the…
Context: The environmental conditions for asympotic giant branch (AGB) stars to reach the carbon-rich (C-rich) phase are important to understand the evolutionary process of AGB stars. The difference between the spatial distributions of…
The evolution of galaxies is driven by the birth and death of stars. AGB stars are at the end points of their evolution and therefore their luminosities directly reflect their birth mass; this enables us to reconstruct the star formation…
We use high-angular-resolution images obtained with SPHERE/ZIMPOL to study the photosphere, the warm molecular layer, and the inner wind of the close-by oxygen-rich AGB star R Doradus. We present observations in filters V, cntH$\alpha$, and…
The winds of cool luminous AGB stars are commonly assumed to be driven by radiative acceleration of dust grains which form in the extended atmospheres produced by pulsation-induced shock waves. The dust particles gain momentum by absorption…
The polarization observed for stars background to dark clouds (Bok Globules) is often used as diagnostic to study the ongoing star formation processes in these clouds. Such polarization in the optical have been reported for eight nearby…
The survey for DUST In Nearby Galaxies with Spitzer (DUSTiNGS) has identified hundreds of candidate dust-producing Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars in several nearby metal-poor galaxies. We have obtained multi-epoch follow-up…
We investigate whether stellar dust sources i.e. asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and supernovae (SNe) can account for dust detected in 5<z<6.5 quasars (QSOs). We calculate the required dust yields per AGB star and per SN using the dust…
By tracing the distribution of cool dust in the extended envelopes of post-AGB stars and (proto)-planetary nebulae ((P)PNe) we aim to recover, or constrain, the mass loss history experienced by these stars in their recent past. The…
We have employed state-of-the-art evolutionary models of low and intermediate-mass AGB stars, and included the effect of circumstellar dust shells on the spectral energy distribution (SED) of AGB stars, to revise the Padua library of…
Emission and absorption line observations of molecules in late-type stars are a vital component in our understanding of stellar evolution, dust formation and mass loss in these objects. The molecular composition of the gas in the…
A previously reported literature search suggested that the AGB stars in Galactic globular clusters may be showing different distributions of CN-strong and CN-weak stars as compared to their RGB stars. In most cases the second giant branches…
Context. Many protoplanetary nebulae show strong asymmetries in their surrounding shell, pointing to asymmetries during the mass loss phase. Questions concerning the origin and the onset of deviations from spherical symmetry are important…
We investigate the development of bipolar outflows during the early post-AGB evolution. A sample of ten OH/IR stars is observed at high angular resolution, including bipolar nebulae (OH231.8+4.2), bright post-AGB stars (HD 101584) and…
With the advent of space missions, like SPITZER and ASTRO-F, with sensitive detectors in the near- and mid-infra red covering a reasonable field-of-view and having a good spatial resolution, it will be possible to detect individual AGB…
We present AKARI/IRC observations of a sample of six extremely red IRAS sources, of which three are variable OH/IR stars and the rest are early post-AGB stars. The OH/IR stars show a red continuum with the expected strong 10 micron silicate…
Obscured by their circumstellar dusty envelopes post-AGB stars emit a large fraction of their energy in the infrared and thus, infrared sky surveys like IRAS were essential for discoveries of post-AGBs in the past. Now, with the AKARI…