Self-enrichment in globular clusters: the extreme He-rich populationof NGC 2808

Di Criscienzo, M.; Ventura, P.; D'Antona, F.; Dell'Agli, F.; Tailo, M.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 479, Issue 4, p.5325-5334

Advertised on:
10
2018
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
7
Refereed citations
4
Description
Almost several decades after the discovery of the first multiple populations in galactic globular clusters (GC), the debate on their formation is still extremely current and NGC 2808 remains one of the best benchmark to test any scenario for their origin and the evolution. In this work, we focus on the chemical composition of stars belonging to the extreme He-rich population populated by stars with the most extreme abundance of Mg, Al, Na, O, and Si. We checked whether the most recent measures are consistent with the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) yields of stars of 6.5-8 M_{⊙}. These stars evolve on time scales of the order of 40-60 Myr and eject matter strongly enriched in helium, owing to a deep penetration of the surface convective zone down to regions touched by CNO nucleosynthesis occurring after the core He-burning phase. Since the big unknown of the AGB phase of massive stars is the mass-loss, we propose a new approch that takes into account the effects of the radiation pressure on dust particles. We show that this more realistic description is able to reproduce the observed abundances of Mg, Al, Na, and Si in these extreme stars. The large spread in the oxygen abundances is explained by invoking deep mixing during the red giant branch phase. It will be possible to check this work hypothesis as soon as the oxygen measurements of the main-sequence stars of NGC 2808 will be available.
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Nucleosynthesis and molecular processes in the late stages of Stellar Evolution
Low- to intermediate-mass (M < 8 solar masses, Ms) stars represent the majority of stars in the Cosmos. They finish their lives on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) - just before they form planetary nebulae (PNe) - where they experience complex nucleosynthetic and molecular processes. AGB stars are important contributors to the enrichment of the
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