Bibcode
García-Hernández, D. A.
Referencia bibliográfica
Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana, v.88, p.336 (2017)
Fecha de publicación:
2017
Número de citas
3
Número de citas referidas
3
Descripción
It is now about 30 years ago that photometric and spectroscopic surveys
of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs)
uncovered the first examples of truly massive (> 3-4 M_ȯ) O-rich
AGB stars experiencing hot bottom burning (HBB). Massive (Li-rich) HBB
AGB stars were later identified in our own Galaxy and they pertain to
the Galactic population of obscured OH/IR stars. High-resolution optical
spectroscopic surveys have revealed the massive Galactic AGB stars to be
strongly enriched in Rb compared to other nearby s-process elements like
Zr, confirming that Ne22 is the dominant neutron source in
these stars. Similar surveys of OH/IR stars in the MCs disclosed their
Rb-rich low-metallicity counterparts, showing that these stars are
usually brighter (because of HBB flux excess) than the standard adopted
luminosity limit for AGB stars (Mbol ˜ -7.1) and that
they might have stellar masses of at least ˜6-7 M_ȯ. The
chemical composition and photometric variability are efficient in
separating the massive AGB stars from massive red supergiants (RSG) but
the main difficulty is to distinguish between massive AGB and super-AGB
stars because the present theoretical nucleosynthesis models predict
both stars to be chemically identical. Here I review the available
multiwavelength (from the optical to the far-IR) observations on massive
AGB and super-AGB stars as well as the current caveats and limitations
in our undestanding of these stars. Finally, I underline the expected
observations on massive AGB and super-AGB stars from on-going massive
surveys like Gaia and SDSS-IV/APOGEE-2 and future facilities such as the
James Webb Space Telescope.