We present the colibri code for computing the evolution of stars along the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase. Compared to purely synthetic TP-AGB codes, colibri relaxes a ...significant part of their analytic formalism in favour of a detailed physics applied to a complete envelope model, in which the stellar structure equations are integrated from the atmosphere down to the bottom of the hydrogen-burning shell. This allows us to predict self-consistently: (i) the effective temperature, and more generally the convective envelope and atmosphere structures, correctly coupled to the changes in the surface chemical abundances and gas opacities; (ii) the conditions under which sphericity effects may significantly affect the atmospheres of giant stars; (iii) the core mass-luminosity relation and its possible break-down due to the occurrence of hot-bottom burning (HBB) in the most massive AGB stars, by taking properly into account the nuclear energy generation in the H-burning shell and in the deepest layers of the convective envelope; (iv) the HBB nucleosynthesis via the solution of a complete nuclear network (including the pp chains, and the CNO, NeNa and MgAl cycles) coupled to a diffusive description of mixing, suitable to follow also the synthesis of 7Li via the Cameron-Fowler beryllium transport mechanism; (v) the intershell abundances left by each thermal pulse via the solution of a complete nuclear network applied to a simple model of the pulse-driven convective zone (PDCZ); (vi) the onset and quenching of the third dredge-up, with a temperature criterion that is applied, at each thermal pulse, to the result of envelope integrations at the stage of the post-flash luminosity peak.
At the same time, colibri pioneers new techniques in the treatment of the physics of stellar interiors, not yet adopted in full TP-AGB models. It is the first evolutionary code ever to use accurate on-the-fly computation of the equation of state (EoS) for roughly 800 atoms, ions, molecules and of the Rosseland mean opacities throughout the atmosphere and the deep envelope. This ensures a complete consistency, step by step, of both EoS and opacity with the evolution of the chemical abundances caused by the third dredge-up and HBB. Another distinguishing aspect of colibri is its high computational speed, which allows to generate complete grids of TP-AGB models in just a few hours. This feature is absolutely necessary for calibrating the many uncertain parameters and processes that characterize the TP-AGB phase.
We illustrate the many unique features of colibri by means of detailed evolutionary tracks computed for several choices of model parameters, including initial star masses, chemical abundances, nuclear reaction rates, efficiency of the third dredge-up, overshooting at the base of the PDCZ, etc. Future papers in this series will deal with the calibration of all these and other parameters using observational data of AGB stars in the Galaxy and in nearby systems, a step that is of paramount importance for producing reliable stellar population synthesis models of galaxies up to high redshift.
We present the dust ejecta of the new stellar models for the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase computed with the colibri code. We use a formalism of dust growth coupled with a ...stationary wind for both M- and C-stars. In the original version of this formalism, the most efficient destruction process of silicate dust in M-giants is chemisputtering by H2 molecules. For these stars, we find that dust grains can only form at relatively large radial distances (r ∼ 5R
*), where they cannot be efficiently accelerated, in agreement with other investigations. In the light of recent laboratory results, we also consider the alternative case that the condensation temperature of silicates is determined only by the competition between growth and free evaporation processes (i.e. no chemisputtering). With this latter approach we obtain dust condensation temperatures that are significantly higher (up to T
cond ∼ 1400 K) than those found when chemisputtering is included (T
cond ∼ 900 K), and in better agreement with condensation experiments. As a consequence, silicate grains can remain stable in inner regions of the circumstellar envelopes (r ∼ 2 R
*), where they can rapidly grow and can be efficiently accelerated. With this modification, our models nicely reproduce the observed trend between terminal velocities and mass-loss rates of Galactic M-giants.
For C-stars the formalism is based on the homogeneous growth scheme where the key role is played by the carbon over oxygen excess. The models reproduce fairly well the terminal velocities of Galactic stars and there is no need to invoke changes in the standard assumptions. At decreasing metallicity the carbon excess becomes more pronounced and the efficiency of dust formation increases. This trend could be in tension with recent observational evidence in favour of a decreasing efficiency, at decreasing metallicity. If confirmed by more observational data, it would indicate that either the amount of the carbon excess, determined by the complex interplay between mass-loss, third dredge-up and hot-bottom burning, or the homogeneous growth scheme should be revised. Finally, we analyse the differences in the total dust production of M-stars that arise from the use of the two approaches (i.e. with or without chemisputtering). We find that, in spite of the differences in the expected dust stratification, for a given set of TP-AGB models, the ejecta are only weakly sensitive to the specific assumption. This work also shows that the properties of TP-AGB circumstellar envelopes are important diagnostic tools that may be profitably added to the traditional calibrators for setting further constraints on this complex phase of stellar evolution.
We introduce a new generation of PARSEC-COLIBRI stellar isochrones that includes a detailed treatment of the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase, covering a wide range of initial ...metallicities (0.0001 < Zi < 0.06). Compared to previous releases, the main novelties and improvements are use of new TP-AGB tracks and related atmosphere models and spectra for M and C-type stars; inclusion of the surface H+He+CNO abundances in the isochrone tables, accounting for the effects of diffusion, dredge-up episodes and hot-bottom burning; inclusion of complete thermal pulse cycles, with a complete description of the in-cycle changes in the stellar parameters; new pulsation models to describe the long-period variability in the fundamental and first-overtone modes; and new dust models that follow the growth of the grains during the AGB evolution, in combination with radiative transfer calculations for the reprocessing of the photospheric emission. Overall, these improvements are expected to lead to a more consistent and detailed description of properties of TP-AGB stars expected in resolved stellar populations, especially in regard to their mean photometric properties from optical to mid-infrared wavelengths. We illustrate the expected numbers of TP-AGB stars of different types in stellar populations covering a wide range of ages and initial metallicities, providing further details on the "C-star island" that appears at intermediate values of age and metallicity, and about the AGB-boosting effect that occurs at ages close to 1.6-Gyr for populations of all metallicities. The isochrones are available through a new dedicated web server.
We extend the formalism presented in our recent calculations of dust ejecta from the Thermally Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB) phase to the case of super-solar metallicity stars. The TP-AGB ...evolutionary models are computed with the colibri code. We adopt our preferred scheme for dust growth. For M-giants, we neglect chemisputtering by H2 molecules and for C-stars we assume a homogeneous growth scheme which is primarily controlled by the carbon over oxygen excess. At super-solar metallicities, dust forms more efficiently and silicates tend to condense significantly closer to the photosphere (r ∼ 1.5R
*) - and thus at higher temperatures and densities - than at solar and sub-solar metallicities (r ∼ 2-3R
*). In such conditions, the hypothesis of thermal decoupling between gas and dust becomes questionable, while dust heating due to collisions plays an important role. The heating mechanism delays dust condensation to slightly outer regions in the circumstellar envelope. We find that the same mechanism is not significant at solar and sub-solar metallicities. The main dust products at super-solar metallicities are silicates. We calculate the total dust ejecta and dust-to-gas ejecta, for various values of the stellar initial masses and initial metallicities Z = 0.04, 0.06. Merging these new calculations with those for lower metallicities it turns out that, contrary to what is often assumed, the total dust-to-gas ejecta of intermediate-mass stars exhibit only a weak dependence on the initial metal content.
We present the results of our survey of 1612-MHz circumstellar OH maser emission from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and red supergiants (RSGs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We have ...discovered four new circumstellar maser sources in the LMC, and increased the number of reliable wind speeds from infrared (IR) stars in the LMC from 5 to 13. Using our new wind speeds, as well as those from Galactic sources, we have derived an updated relation for dust-driven winds: ... We compare the subsolar metallicity LMC OH/IR stars with carefully selected samples of more metal-rich OH/IR stars, also at known distances, in the Galactic Centre and Galactic bulge. We derive pulsation periods for eight of the bulge stars for the first time by using near-IR photometry from the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea survey. We have modelled our LMC OH/IR stars and developed an empirical method of deriving gas-to-dust ratios and mass-loss rates by scaling the models to the results from maser profiles. We have done this also for samples in the Galactic Centre and bulge and derived a new mass-loss prescription which includes luminosity, pulsation period, and gas-to-dust ratio ... The tightest correlation is found between mass-loss rate and luminosity. We find that the gas-to-dust ratio has little effect on the mass-loss of oxygen-rich AGB stars and RSGs within the Galaxy and the LMC. This suggests that the mass-loss of oxygen-rich AGB stars and RSGs is (nearly) independent of metallicity between a half and twice solar. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
In this work the optical properties of amorphous carbon (amC) dust condensed around carbon(C)-stars are constrained by comparing the observations for the Large Magellanic Cloud C-stars from the Two ...Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and from the Gaia data release 2 (DR2) with the synthetic photometry obtained by computing dust growth and radiative transfer in their circumstellar envelopes. The set of optical constants of amC dust considered have been pre-selected according to their ability to reproduce the infrared colour-colour diagrams in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Only two combinations of the optical data set and grain size are able to reproduce the infrared photometry and the Gaia observations simultaneously. The analysis presented provides information about the properties of amC dust grains that might be characterized by a diamond-like structure, rather than a graphite-like one, at least around the most dust-enshrouded C-stars, or be composed of `small' grains of size less than 0.04 μm. The selected data sets will be adopted to compute grids of spectra as a function of the stellar parameters that will be employed to estimate the dust return and mass-loss rates of C-stars by fitting their spectral energy distribution, and to study the resolved stellar populations of nearby objects.
Abstract
We investigate the variation in the mid-infrared spectral energy distributions of 373 low-redshift (
z
< 0.4) star-forming galaxies, which reflects a variety of polycyclic aromatic ...hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features. The relative strength of PAH emission is parameterized as
q
PAH
, which is defined as the mass fraction of PAH particles in the total dust mass. With the aid of continuous mid-infrared photometric data points covering 7–24
μ
m and far-infrared flux densities,
q
PAH
values are derived through spectral energy distribution fitting. The correlation between
q
PAH
and other physical properties of galaxies, i.e., gas-phase metallicity (
12
+
log
(
O
/
H
)
), stellar mass, and specific star-formation rate (sSFR) are explored. As in previous studies,
q
PAH
values of galaxies with high metallicity are found to be higher than those with low metallicity. The strength of PAH emission is also positively correlated with the stellar mass and negatively correlated with the sSFR. The correlation between
q
PAH
and each parameter still exists even after the other two parameters are fixed. In addition to the PAH strength, the application of metallicity-dependent gas-to-dust mass ratio appears to work well to estimate gas mass that matches the observed relationship between molecular gas and physical parameters. The result obtained will be used to calibrate the observed PAH luminosity-total infrared luminosity relation, based on the variation of MIR-FIR SED, which is used in the estimation of hidden star formation.
Abstract
We present the results of targeted observations and a survey of 1612-, 1665- and 1667-MHz circumstellar OH maser emission from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and red supergiants (RSGs) ...in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), using the Parkes and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) radio telescopes. No clear OH maser emission has been detected in any of our observations targeting luminous, long-period, large-amplitude variable stars, which have been confirmed spectroscopically and photometrically to be mid- to late-M spectral type. These observations have probed 3–4 times deeper than any OH maser survey in the SMC. Using a bootstrapping method with Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Galactic OH/IR star samples and our SMC observation upper limits, we have calculated the likelihood of not detecting maser emission in any of the two sources considered to be the top maser candidates to be less than 0.05 per cent, assuming a similar pumping mechanism as the LMC and Galactic OH/IR sources. We have performed a population comparison of the Magellanic Clouds and used Spitzer IRAC and MIPS photometry to confirm that we have observed all high luminosity SMC sources that are expected to exhibit maser emission. We suspect that, compared to the OH/IR stars in the Galaxy and LMC, the reduction in metallicity may curtail the dusty wind phase at the end of the evolution of the most massive cool stars. We also suspect that the conditions in the circumstellar envelope change beyond a simple scaling of abundances and wind speed with metallicity.
The interplay between AGB interiors and their outermost layers, where molecules and dust form, is a problem of high complexity. As a consequence, physical processes like mass loss, which depend on ...the chemistry of the circumstellar envelope, are often oversimplified. The best candidates to drive mass-loss in AGB stars are dust grains, which trap the outgoing radiation and drag the surrounding gas. Grains build up, however, is far from being completely understood. Our aim is to model both the physics and the chemistry of the cool expanding layers around AGB stars in order to characterize the on-going chemistry, from atoms to dust grains. This has been our rationale to develop ab initio VULCAN, a FORTRAN hydro code able to follow the propagation of shocks in the circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars. The version presented in this paper adopts a perfect gas law and a very simplified treatment of the radiative transfer effects and dust nucleation. In this paper, we present preliminary results obtained with our code.
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