AGB Stars: History, Structure, and Characteristics

摘要: “Asymptotic giant branch stars” developed into a broad, coherent field of research in the last quarter preceding century, but its roots go much deeper past and involve several serendipitous discoveries. We will discuss briefly when how most significant concepts came to surface. To that end we have arranged historical developments five broad areas. do not intend write full history astronomy, skip over fundamental physics. When no specific reference is given, used North’s History Astronomy Cosmology [56] A Source Book Astrophysics, edited by Lang Gingerich [48]. also limit our review before 1984 for two reasons: (i) In long published 1983 Iben Renzini [39] showed theoretical side AGB evolution was broadly consistently understood; (ii) results IRAS full-sky survey at 12, 25, 60, 100 μm became public; catalogue contained thousands stars, new era observation began.