2017/06/07 by D. A. Garcia-Hernandez, D. A. García–Hernández, Garcia-Hernandez, D. A.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1706.02107
Invited Review in "The AGB-Supernovae Mass Transition", MmSAI (in press; 6 pages, 3 Figures, and 1 Table); the reference Perez-Mesa et al. (2017, now accepted in A&A) has been updated
openalex publication_date 2017/06/07 · arxiv created 2017/06/09 · arxiv updated 2017/06/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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 Ms) 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 Ms. The chemical composition and photometric variability are efficient 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.