Related papers: Early Post Asymptotic Giant Branch Instability: Do…
Extreme helium stars are very rare low-mass supergiants in a late stage of evolution. They are probably contracting to become white dwarfs following a violent phase of evolution which caused them to become hydrogen-deficient giants,…
The hydrogen-deficiency in extremely hot post-AGB stars of spectral class PG1159 is probably caused by a (very) late helium-shell flash or a AGB final thermal pulse that consumes the hydrogen envelope, exposing the usually-hidden intershell…
We report the results of an exploratory program to image the extended circumstellar envelopes of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in dust-scattered galactic light. The goal is to characterize the morphology of the envelopes as a probe of…
We examine the flow from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars when along a small solid angle the optical depth due to dust is very large. We consider two types of flows. In the first, small cool spots are formed on the surface of slowly…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars play a key role in the chemical evolution of galaxies. These stars are the fundamental stellar site for the production of light elements such as C, N and F, and half of the elements heavier than Fe via…
The majority of the inhomogeneities in the chemical composition of Globular Cluster (GC) stars appear due to primordial enrichment. The most studied model today claims that the ejecta of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars of high mass…
The evolution on the AGB and beyond is reviewed with respect to the origin of Wolf-Rayet central stars. We focus on thermal pulses due to their particular importance for the evolution of hydrogen deficient stars. It is shown that overshoot…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars are important players in the chemical evolution modelling of galaxies, because they are major producers of several chemical elements and excellent tracers of the structure and of the star formation…
As they evolve, white dwarfs undergo major changes in surface composition, a phenomenon known as spectral evolution. In particular, some stars enter the cooling sequence with helium atmospheres (type DO) but eventually develop hydrogen…
EGB6 is an extended, faint old planetary nebula (PN) with an enigmatic nucleus. The central star (PG0950+139) is a hot DAOZ-type white dwarf (WD). An unresolved, compact emission knot was discovered to be located 0.166" away from the WD and…
We calculated a grid of evolutionary models for white dwarfs with helium cores (He-WDs) and investigated the occurrence of hydrogen-shell flashes due to unstable hydrogen burning via CNO cycling. Our calculations show that such thermal…
We explore the possibility that the short-lived radionuclides $^{26}$Al, $^{60}$Fe, $^{107}$Pd, and $^{182}$Hf inferred to be present in the proto-solar cloud originated from $3-8 M_{\odot}$ Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. Models of…
Context. Asymptotic Giant Branch stars are characterised by complex stellar surface dynamics that affect the measurements and amplify the uncertainties on stellar parameters. The resulting motion of the stellar photo-center could have…
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…
Active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback is a key ingredient in galaxy evolution, yet its impact on the cold atomic gas reservoir -- the neutral hydrogen (HI) phase -- remains poorly constrained. We present the most extensive spatially…
We study the population of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) by means of full evolutionary models of stars of mass 1Msun < M < 8Msun, evolved through the thermally pulsing phase. The models also account…
We present a novel approach to address dust production by low- and intermediate-mass stars. We study the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase, during which the formation of dust takes place, from the perspective of post-AGB and planetary…
The origin of the so called 'detached shells' around AGB stars is not fully understood, but two common hypotheses state that these shells form either through the interaction of distinct wind phases or an eruptive mass loss associated with a…
The integrated luminosity of the TP-AGB phase is a major uncertainty in stellar population synthesis models. We use the white dwarf initial final mass relation and stellar interiors models to demonstrate that a significant fraction of the…
The winds observed around asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are generally attributed to radiation pressure on dust, which is formed in the extended dynamical atmospheres of these pulsating, strongly convective stars. Current…