The VMC survey III. Mass-loss rates and luminosities of LMC AGB stars

TL;DR

This study models dust radiative transfer for 374 AGB stars in the LMC, deriving their mass-loss rates, luminosities, and chemical types, providing valuable constraints for stellar evolution models.

Contribution

It introduces a reliable method to determine mass-loss rates, luminosities, and classifications for AGB stars using combined multi-wavelength data.

Findings

Reliable mass-loss rates and luminosities derived for AGB stars.

Chemical classifications of C- and O-rich stars achieved.

Constraints provided for AGB evolutionary models.

Abstract

Dust radiative transfer models are presented for all 374 AGB stars candidates in one of the fields observed by the new VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC). Mass-loss rates, luminosities and a classification of C- and O-rich stars are derived by fitting the models to the spectral energy distribution obtained by combining VMC data with existing optical, near-, and mid-infrared photometry. This exploratory study shows that our method provides reliable mass-loss rates, luminosities and chemical classifications for all AGB stars. These results offer already important constraints to AGB evolutionary models. Most of our conclusions, especially for the rarer dust-enshrouded extreme AGB stars, are however strongly limited by the relatively small area covered by our study. Forthcoming VMC observations will easily remove this limitation. [abridged]