Bibcode
García-Hernández, D. A.
Bibliographical reference
Why Galaxies Care about AGB Stars II: Shining Examples and Common Inhabitants. Proceedings of a conference held at University Campus, Viena, Austria, 16-20 August 2010. Edited by F. Kerschbaum, T. Lebzelter, and R.F. Wing. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2011., p.437
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9
2011
Citations
1
Refereed citations
1
Description
The Magellanic Clouds (MCs) offer a unique opportunity to study the
stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis of massive Asymptotic Giant Branch
(AGB) stars in low metallicity environments where distances are known.
Rubidium is a key element to distinguish between high mass AGB stars
and low mass AGB stars or other types of astronomical objects such as
massive red supergiant stars. Theoretically, high mass AGB stars are
predicted to produce a lot of Rb. We present the discovery of massive
Rb-rich AGB stars in the MCs, confirming for the first time that these
stars also exist in other galaxies. Our findings show that these stars
are generally brighter than the standard adopted luminosity limit
(Mbol ≍ -7.1) for AGB stars. The observations of
massive MC AGBs are qualitatively predicted by the present theoretical
models. However, these theoretical models are far from matching the
extremely high Rb overabundances observed. This might be related to an
incomplete present understanding of the atmospheres of these stars.