Late-Stage Evolution of Low- and Intermediate-Mass Stars
Author | : Brian Davis |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2022 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : |
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Great strides have been made in recent years to better understand the late stages of stellar evolution for low- and intermediate-mass stars, and, specifically, the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) and post-AGB (PAGB) phases. Even still, there is a great amount of work to be done, as large discrepancies between theory and observations remain. In this dissertation, I perform observational studies of pre- and post-AGB stellar evolution for stars in this mass range, so as to provide better constraints for future theoretical models. For stars with masses 2 Msun, the horizontal-branch (HB) is the phase of evolution immediately preceding the AGB. Stars lying above the HB in the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of globular clusters (GCs) offer valuable observational tests of theoretical evolutionary tracks. I therefore compiled what is to date the most complete survey of above-horizontal-branch (AHB) stars--objects lying above the HB and blueward of the AGB in the CMD--in 97 Galactic and seven Magellanic Cloud GCs. I selected AHB candidates based on photometry in the uBVI system, which is optimized for detection of low-gravity stars with large Balmer jumps, in the color range -0.05 (B-V)_0