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

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.

arXiv comment2 pages, 1 figure. To be published in the proceedings of IAU Symp. 241 on Stellar Populations as Building Blocks of Galaxies, ed. A. Vazdekis et al. (2007). Replaced to match edited version