Related papers: Supergiants transiting towards white dwarf
This review discusses some of the observational constraints on what we know about the mass loss experienced by stars in the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase of evolution. Mass loss affects the maximum mass attained by the core of an AGB…
A subgroup of dwarf galaxies have characteristics of a possible evolutionary transition between star-forming systems and dwarf ellipticals. These systems host significant starbursts in combination with smooth, elliptical outer envelopes and…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars are good tracers of the Galactic structure. They are bright in the infrared and can therefore be detected even in the most obscured regions of the Galaxy. Maser emission from their circumstellar envelopes…
Nine metal-polluted white dwarfs are observed with medium-resolution optical spectroscopy,where photospheric abundances are determined and interpreted through comparison against solar system objects. An improved method of making such…
Oxygen and carbon-rich AGB stars - and objects directly polluted by them - are excellent laboratories to investigate the nucleosynthesis and mixing processes occurring during the later phases of the of low- and intermediate-mass star…
Intermediate mass stars (1-8 solar masses) evolve along the Asymptotic Giant Branch after completion of hydrogen and helium core burning. At the tip they lose for several ten to hundred thousand years copious amounts of mass and exhibit…
Stellar photospheres of post-asymptotic giant branch stars bear witness to the internal chemical enrichment processes, integrated over their entire stellar evolution. Here we study post-AGB stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). With…
The study of the evolutionary properties of Asymptotic Giant Branch stars still presents unresolved topics. Progress in the theoretical understanding of their evolution is hampered by the difficulty to empirically explain key physical…
Post-AGB stars are exquisite probes of AGB nucleosynthesis. However, the previous lack of accurate distances jeopardised comparison with theoretical AGB models. The $Gaia$ Early Data Release 3 ($Gaia$ EDR3) has now allowed for a…
We show that the inclusion of axion emission during stellar evolution introduces important changes into the evolutionary behaviour of AGB stars. The mass of the resulting C/O white dwarf is much lower than the equivalent obtained from…
Straddling the traditional realms of the planets and the stars, objects below the edge of the main sequence have such unique properties, and are being discovered in such quantities, that one can rightly claim that a new field at the…
The present generation of large telescopes facilitates spectroscopy of blue supergiants in galaxies out to distances beyond the Local Group. Recent developments in NLTE spectrum synthesis techniques allow for an accurate determination of…
The transition from the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) to the final white dwarf (WD) stage is arguably the least understood phase in the evolution of single low- and intermediate-mass stars ($0.8 \lesssim M_{\rm ZAMS}/M_\odot\lesssim…
We study a sample of post-AGB stars in the Galaxy, with known surface chemical composition and s-process enrichment. The recent determination of the luminosities of these sources, based on Gaia parallaxes, allows for the fist time a deep…
Despite numerous efforts, the transition from Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars to Planetary Nebulae (PN) is a poorly understood phase of stellar evolution. We have therefore carried out interferometric (VLA) radio observations of a…
Symbiotic stars (SySt) are binaries composed of a star in the later stages of evolution and a stellar remnant. The enhanced mass-loss from the giant drives interacting mass exchange and makes these systems laboratories for understanding…
J, H, and K' images are used to investigate the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) content of the Local Group dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 205. The AGB on the (K, H-K) and (K, J-K) color-magnitude diagrams consists of two sequences: a…
Post-AGB stars evolve on a very fast track and hence not many are known. Their spectral properties make them, in principle, ideal objects to test our theories on the late phases of stellar evolution. This has, however, proven much more…
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…
Two new ON supergiant spectra (bringing the total known to seven) and one new ONn giant (total of this class now eight) are presented; they have been discovered by the Galactic O-Star Spectroscopic Survey. These rare objects represent…