Learning about AGB stars by studying the stars polluted by their outflows

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how combining radial-velocity data with astrometry from Hipparcos and Gaia enables precise determination of white dwarf masses in Ba star systems, providing insights into AGB star evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a method to accurately constrain the orbital inclinations and masses of white dwarf companions in Ba star systems using combined observational data.

Findings

Successful mass determination of white dwarf companions in Ba stars.

Enhanced understanding of AGB progenitor properties through initial-final mass relationships.

Improved orbital parameter constraints for binary systems involving AGB stars.

Abstract

A rich zoo of peculiar objects forms when Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars, undergo interactions in a binary system. For example, Barium (Ba) stars are main-sequence and red-giant stars that accreted mass from the outflows of a former AGB companion, which is now a dim white dwarf (WD). Their orbital properties can help us constrain AGB binary interaction mechanisms, and their chemical abundances are a tracer of the nucleosynthesis processes that took place inside the former AGB star. The observational constraints concerning the orbital and stellar properties of Ba stars have increased in the past years, but important uncertainties remained concerning their WD companions. In this contribution, we used HD76225 to demonstrate that by combining radial-velocity data with Hipparcos and Gaia astrometry, one can accurately constrain the orbital inclinations of these systems and obtain the absolute masses of these WDs, getting direct information about their AGB progenitors via initial-final mass relationships.