Hot bottom burning and s-process nucleosynthesis in massive AGB stars at the beginning of the thermally-pulsing phase
- Author(s)
- A. Garcia Hernandez, O. Zamora, A. Yagüe, Stefan Uttenthaler, A. I. Karakas
- Abstract
We report the first spectroscopic identification of massive Galactic asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars at the beginning of the thermal pulse (TP) phase. These stars are the most Li-rich massive AGBs found to date, super Li-rich AGBs with log ɛ (Li) ~ 3-4. The high Li overabundances are accompanied by weak or no s-process element (i.e. Rb and Zr) enhancements. A comparison of our observations with the most recent hot bottom burning (HBB) and s-process nucleosynthesis models confirms that HBB is strongly activated during the first TPs but the 22Ne neutron source needs many more TP and third dredge-up episodes to produce enough Rb at the stellar surface. We also show that the short-lived element Tc, usually used as an indicator of AGB genuineness, is not detected in massive AGBs, which is in agreement with the theoretical predictions when the 22Ne neutron source dominates the s-process nucleosynthesis.
Appendix A is available in electronic form at www.aanda.org
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, University of La Laguna, INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Australian National University
- Journal
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume
- 555
- No. of pages
- 6
- ISSN
- 0004-6361
- Publication date
- 07-2013
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c9ae7f9d-7287-45b9-80f9-45b85c76ac6d