Related papers: Observing Compact Disks Inside Pre-Planetary Nebul…

Nearly all young stars are initially surrounded by `protoplanetary' discs of gas and dust, and in the case of single stars at least 30\% of these discs go on to form planets. The process of protoplanetary disc formation can result in…

At the end of their lives low mass stars such as our Sun lose most of their mass. The resulting planetary nebulae show a wide variety of shapes, from spherical to highly bipolar. According to the generalized interacting stellar winds model,…

[ABRIDGED] We study supermassive black hole binary mergers driven by angular momentum loss to small-scale gas discs. Such binaries form after major galaxy mergers, but their fate is unclear since hardening through stellar scattering becomes…

Single stars in ancient globular clusters (GCs) are believed incapable of producing planetary nebulae (PNe), because their post-asymptotic-giant-branch evolutionary timescales are slower than the dissipation timescales for PNe.…

The increase in discovered close binary central stars of planetary nebulae is leading to a sufficiently large sample to begin to make broader conclusions about the effect of close binary stars on common envelope evolution and planetary…

AGB stars are responsible for producing a variety of elements, including carbon, nitrogen, and the heavy elements produced in the slow neutron-capture process ($s$-elements). There are many uncertainties involved in modelling the evolution…

Orientation of parsec-scale accretion disks in AGN is likely to be nearly random for different black hole feeding episodes. Since AGN accretion disks are unstable to self-gravity on parsec scales, star formation in these disks will create…

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…

Theoretical models of very metal-poor intermediate-mass Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars predict a large overabundance of primary nitrogen. The very metal-poor, carbon-enhanced, s-process-rich stars, which are thought to be the polluted…

I point to an interesting similarity in the morphology and some non-dimensional quantities between pairs of X-ray-deficient bubbles in clusters of galaxies and pairs of optical-deficient bubbles in planetary nebulae (PNs). This similarity…

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 investigated the infrared properties of a sample of objects with IRAS colors typical of planetary nebulae. The selected objects have not yet evolved to the planetary nebula stage since they have no detectable radio continuum…

We study the formation, evolution and physical properties of accretion disks formed via wind capture in binary systems. Using the AMR code AstroBEAR, we have carried out high resolution 3D simulations that follow a stellar mass secondary in…

This paper explores the effects of post-AGB winds driven solely by magnetic pressure from the stellar surface. It is found that winds can reach high speeds under this assumption, and lead to the formation of highly collimated…

We review the evolution of our understanding of the planetary nebulae phenomenon and their place in the scheme of stellar evolution. The historical steps leading to our current understanding of central star evolution and nebular formation…

We have carried out long-term (14 years) V and R photometric monitoring of 12 carbon-rich proto-planetary nebulae. The light and color curves display variability in all of them. The light curves are complex and suggest multiple periods,…

The majority of stars in known star-forming regions are located in binary systems. Although the separation distribution of these populations varies from one region to another, most peak between a few and several tens of AU. Given the >100…

We image the detailed inner rim morphology for a sample of post-AGB circumbinary discs observed using NIR interferometry. At resolutions down to ~1-2 mas (corresponding to ~1-10 AU), we aim to reveal potential substructures that may trace…

Compact groups of galaxies have posed a number of challenging questions. Intensive observational and theoretical studies are now providing answers to many of these, and at the same time, are revealing unexpected new clues about the nature…

Context. The Mass loss of Evolved StarS (MESS) sample observed with PACS on board the Herschel Space Observatory revealed that several asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are surrounded by an asymmetric circumstellar envelope (CSE) whose…