# Super-AGB Stars and their role as Electron Capture Supernova progenitors

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the evolution, nucleosynthesis, and supernova progenitor roles of super-AGB stars, emphasizing their importance in stellar populations, nucleosynthetic yields, and the pathways leading to electron capture supernovae.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of super-AGB stars, including new nucleosynthesis yield predictions and insights into their role as electron capture supernova progenitors.

## Key findings

- Super-AGB stars can end as ONe white dwarfs or electron capture supernovae.
- Binary evolution significantly influences super-AGB star fates.
- New s-process heavy element yield predictions for super-AGB stars.

## Abstract

We review the lives, deaths and nucleosynthetic signatures of intermediate mass stars in the range approximately 6.5-12 Msun, which form super-AGB stars near the end of their lives. We examine the critical mass boundaries both between different types of massive white dwarfs (CO, CO-Ne, ONe) and between white dwarfs and supernovae and discuss the relative fraction of super-AGB stars that end life as either an ONe white dwarf or as a neutron star (or an ONeFe white dwarf), after undergoing an electron capture supernova. We also discuss the contribution of the other potential single-star channels to electron-capture supernovae, that of the failed massive stars. We describe the factors that influence these different final fates and mass limits, such as composition, the efficiency of convection, rotation, nuclear reaction rates, mass loss rates, and third dredge-up efficiency. We stress the importance of the binary evolution channels for producing electron-capture supernovae. We discuss recent nucleosynthesis calculations and elemental yield results and present a new set of s-process heavy element yield predictions. We assess the contribution from super-AGB star nucleosynthesis in a Galactic perspective, and consider the (super-)AGB scenario in the context of the multiple stellar populations seen in globular clusters. A brief summary of recent works on dust production is included. Lastly we conclude with a discussion of the observational constraints and potential future advances for study into these stars on the low mass/high mass star boundary.