Thresholds for the Dust Driven Mass Loss from C-rich AGB Stars

TL;DR

This paper models dust-driven winds in carbon-rich AGB stars to determine the thresholds for mass loss rates, highlighting the roles of stellar parameters, pulsation, and dust formation in stellar evolution.

Contribution

It introduces detailed radiation hydrodynamics models to identify mass loss thresholds and compares them with observational and theoretical data.

Findings

Mass loss thresholds depend on stellar parameters.

Pulsation and dust formation critically influence wind creation.

Results align with and extend previous observational and theoretical work.

Abstract

It is well established that mass loss from AGB stars due to dust driven winds cannot be arbitrarily low. We model the mass loss from carbon rich AGB stars using detailed frequency-dependent radiation hydrodynamics including dust formation. We present a study of the thresholds for the mass loss rate as a function of stellar parameters based on a subset of a larger grid of such models and compare these results to previous observational and theoretical work. Furthermore, we demonstrate the impact of the pulsation mechanism and dust formation for the creation of a stellar wind and how it affects these thresholds and briefly discuss the consequences for stellar evolution.