https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202022701002
Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars and presolar grains
1
Department of Physics and Geology, via A. Pascoli snc, 06123
Perugia
2
Gran Sasso Science Institute, Via F. Crispi 7,
67100
L’Aquila
3
INFN,Section of Perugia, via A. Pascoli snc,
06123
Perugia
4
INAF, Observatory of Abruzzo, via Mentore Maggini snc, 64100
Teramo
* e–mail: maurizio.busso@pg.infn.it
** e–mail: sara.palmerini@pg.infn.it
*** e–mail: diego.vescovi@gssi.it
Published online: 14 January 2020
Starting from the recognition that radioactive isotopes were present alive in the Early Solar System, inducing composition anomalies from their decay, and through the discovery that other important anomalies affected also stable species, we shall discuss how the carriers of these abundance peculiarities were identified in very refractory pre-solar dust grains, formed in circumstellar environments. We shall outline how groups of such grains and subsequently in-dividual single crystals of C-rich or O-rich materials (like, e.g., SiC and Al2O3) could be analyzed, providing a new tool to verify the composition of stellar winds. This is so especially for AGB stars, which are the primary factories of dust in the Galaxy. For this reason, pristine meteorites open a crucial window on the details of nucleosynthesis processes occurring in such evolved red giants, for both intermediate-mass elements and rare heavy nuclei affected by slow neutron captures (the s-process).
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.