Related papers: BD+30 3639: The Infrared Spectrum During Post-AGB …
The fate of massive stars during the latest stages of their evolution is highly dependent on their mass-loss rate and geometry. These processes have a significant influence on stars with masses between 25 and 40 Msun, i.e., type II SN…
Because of their brightness, gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are viable targets for investigating the dust content in their host galaxies. Simple intrinsic spectral shapes of GRB afterglows allow us to derive the dust extinction. Recently,…
Aims: Grain growth has been suggested as one possible explanation for the diminished dust optical depths in the inner regions of protoplanetary "transition" disks. In this work, we directly test this hypothesis in the context of current…
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…
Context. The fate of a massive star during the latest stages of its evolution is highly dependent on its mass-loss rate/geometry and therefore knowing the geometry of the circumstellar material close to the star and its surroundings is…
Infrared surveys provide essential insights on galaxy evolution. If near-IR studies suggest mild evolution of stellar populations with cosmic time, indications of a substantial evolution have been seen in the far-IR, although the available…
From an analysis of absorption lines in the high resolution spectra we have derived the radial velocities, stellar parameters (Teff, gravity, wind-strength parameter logQ and projected rotational velocity) and abundances (C, N, O, and Si )…
Non-variable OH/IR stars are thought to have just left the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. In this conventional picture, they must still show strong circumstellar extinction caused by the dust ejected during the AGB phase, and the…
Recent observations of the environments of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) favour massive stars as their progenitors, which are likely to be surrounded by gas and dust. The visibility of the optical and UV emission of a GRB are expected to depend…
We present 2 to 2.4 micron integral field spectroscopy of a sample of hot post-AGB stars with early-B spectral types, using the NIFS instrument on Gemini North. These stars are just beginning to ionize their immediate environments and turn…
We present the first near-IR milli-arcsecond-scale image of a post-AGB binary that is surrounded by hot circumbinary dust. A very rich interferometric data set in six spectral channels was acquired of IRAS08544-4431 with the new RAPID…
We present optical and IR integrated colours and SBF magnitudes, computed from stellar population synthesis models that include emission from the dusty envelopes surrounding TP-AGB stars undergoing mass-loss. We explore the effects of…
We compute the mass and composition of dust produced by stars with masses in the range 1Msun<M<8 Msun and with a metallicity of Z=0.001 during their AGB and Super AGB phases. Stellar evolution is followed from the pre-main sequence phase…
We present a method to estimate distances to Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars in the Galaxy, using spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the near- and mid-infrared. By assuming that a given set of source properties (initial mass,…
The asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star HR3126, associated with the arcminute-scale bipolar Toby Jug Nebula, provides a rare opportunity to study the emergence of bipolar structures at the end of the AGB phase. We carried out long-baseline…
We present Spitzer images of the Taurus Complex (TC) and take advantage of the sensitivity and spatial resolution of the observations to characterize the diffuse IR emission across the cloud. This work highlights evidence of dust evolution…
(Abridged) Dust radiative transfer models are presented for 101 carbon stars and 86 oxygen-rich evolved stars in the Magellanic Clouds for which 5-35 \mum\ {\it Spitzer} IRS spectra are available. The spectra are complemented with available…
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 present computations of nucleosynthesis in low-mass red-giant-branch and asymptotic-giant-branch stars of Population I experiencing extended mixing. We adopt the updated version of the FRANEC evolutionary model, a new post-process code…
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…