Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
Dust specks around AGB stars and their feedback to the host environment
Flavia Dell'Agli (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma)
Thursday 01/12/2022 @ 11:30, Sala IV piano Battiferro + Remote
After the exhaustion of helium in the core, low- and intermediate-mass stars evolve through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. During this rapid evolutionary stage that precedes the white dwarf cooling, low- and intermediate-mass stars provide a critical contribution to the life cycle of their host environment. They eject gas reprocessed by the internal nucleosynthesis and dust formed in their cool and dense circumstellar envelopes. The composition and the amount of dust produced in the winds of AGB stars is strongly correlated with the evolution of the central object. Detailed knowledge of the physical structure and chemical composition is an essential ingredient to estimate the impact of AGB stars in the evolutionary history of their host environment. New releases of AGB+dust models were developed in the last years to this scope. Their application in characterizing the AGB contribution to the dust budget in Local Group galaxies will be discussed in this talk, as well as the future perspectives opened by the JWST era.