Nitrogen production in intermediate-mass stars by hot-bottom burning

P. R. Wood*, J. A. McSaveney, M. Scholz, J. C. Lattanzio, K. H. Hinkle, A. I. Karakas

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    Abstract

    The PHOENIX spectrograph has been used on Gemini South in order to determine C, N and O abundances for intermediate mass AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Although seven stars were observed, the spectra of three stars were unusable because they were too cool, causing the molecular features to be too strong for modelling. In another two stars, the spectra were contaminated by emission from shock waves. Pulsation modelling showed that spectra should only be taken near minimum visual light to avoid this problem. The two stars analysed for abundances showed strong enhancements of N and reductions of C, consistent with the expectation of hot-bottom burning. The observed N enhancements and C reductions suggest that envelope convection goes deeper than predicted by evolutionary models using the mixing-length theory of convection. These results provide the first observational in-situ confirmation of primary nitrogen production by hot-bottom burning in intermediate mass AGB stars.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationNinth Torino Workshop on Evolution and Nucleosynthesis in AGB Stars and the Second Perugia Workshop on Nuclear Astrophysics
    Pages163-168
    Number of pages6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2008
    Event9th Torino Workshop on Evolution and Nucleosynthesis in AGB Stars and the 2nd Perugia Workshop on Nuclear Astrophysics - Perugia, Italy
    Duration: 21 Oct 200727 Oct 2007

    Publication series

    NameAIP Conference Proceedings
    Volume1001
    ISSN (Print)0094-243X
    ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

    Conference

    Conference9th Torino Workshop on Evolution and Nucleosynthesis in AGB Stars and the 2nd Perugia Workshop on Nuclear Astrophysics
    Country/TerritoryItaly
    CityPerugia
    Period21/10/0727/10/07

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Nitrogen production in intermediate-mass stars by hot-bottom burning'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this