Complex stellar winds from evolved stars: Stars less than eight times the mass of the Sun end their lives as planetary nebulae, structures of ionized gas thrown off by the star and heated by the exposed stellar core. Planetary nebulae are often bipolar in shape or contain complex morphological features such as rings or spirals. Decin et al. observed the stellar winds of 14 stars during their asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase of stellar evolution, which immediately precedes the planetary nebula phase. They found morphologies in the AGB winds similar to planetary nebulae and demonstrated that they are produced by the influence of a binary companion on the AGB wind. Science , this issue p. 1497

Context. The condensation of inorganic dust grains in the winds of evolved stars is poorly understood. As of today, it is not yet known which molecular clusters form the first dust grains in oxygen-rich (C/O < 1) asymptotic giant branch (AGB) winds. Aluminium oxides and iron-free silicates are often put forward as promising candidates for the first dust seeds.Aims. We aim to constrain the dust formation histories in the winds of oxygen-rich AGB stars. Methods. We obtained Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter array (ALMA) observations with a spatial resolution of 120 × 150 mas tracing the dust formation region of the low mass-loss rate AGB star, R Dor, and the high mass-loss rate AGB star, IK Tau. We detected emission line profiles of AlO, AlOH, and AlCl in the ALMA data and used these line profiles to derive a lower limit of atomic aluminium incorporated in molecules. This constrains the aluminium budget that can condense into grains.Results. Radiative transfer models constrain the fractional abundances of AlO, AlOH, and AlCl in IK Tau and R Dor. We show that the gas-phase aluminium chemistry is completely different in both stars with a remarkable difference in the AlO and AlOH abundance stratification. The amount of aluminium locked up in these three molecules is small, ≤1.1 × 10-7 w.r.t. H2, for both stars, i.e. only ≤2% of the total aluminium budget. An important result is that AlO and AlOH, which are the direct precursors of alumina (Al2O3) grains, are detected well beyond the onset of the dust condensation, which proves that the aluminium oxide condensation cycle is not fully efficient. The ALMA observations allow us to quantitatively assess the current generation of theoretical dynamical-chemical models for AGB winds. We discuss how the current proposed scenario of aluminium dust condensation for low mass-loss rate AGB stars within a few stellar radii from the star, in particular for R Dor and W Hya, poses a challenge if one wishes to explain both the dust spectral features in the spectral energy distribution (SED) in interferometric data and in the polarized light signal. In particular, the estimated grain temperature of Al2O3 is too high for the grains to retain their amorphous structure. We advocate that large gas-phase (Al2O3) n clusters (n > 34) can be the potential agents of the broad 11 μm feature in the SED and in the interferometric data and we propose potential formation mechanisms for these large clusters.

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics

Context.Low and intermediate mass stars are known to power strong stellar winds when evolving through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. Initial mass, luminosity, temperature, and composition determine the pulsation characteristics of the star and the dust species formed in the pulsating photospheric layers. Radiation pressure on these grains triggers the onset of a stellar wind. However, as of today, we still cannot predict the wind mass-loss rates and wind velocities from first principles neither do we know which species are the first to condense in the upper atmospheric regions.Aims.We aim to characterise the dominant physical, dynamical, and chemical processes in the inner wind region of two archetypical oxygen-rich (C/O < 1) AGB stars, that is, the low mass-loss rate AGB star R Dor (Ṁ~ 1 × 10⁻⁷M_⊙yr⁻¹) and the high mass-loss rate AGB star IK Tau (Ṁ~ 5 × 10⁻⁶M_⊙yr⁻¹). The purpose of this study is to observe the key molecular species contributing to the formation of dust grains and to cross-link the observed line brightnesses of several species to the global and local properties of the star and its wind.Methods.A spectral line and imaging survey of IK Tau and R Dor was made with ALMA between 335 and 362 GHz (band 7) at a spatial resolution of ~150 mas, which corresponds to the locus of the main dust formation region of both targets.Results.Some two hundred spectral features from 15 molecules (and their isotopologues) were observed, including rotational lines in both the ground and vibrationally excited states (up tov= 5 for SiO). Detected species include the gaseous precursors of dust grains such as SiO, AlO, AlOH, TiO, and TiO₂. We present a spectral atlas for both stars and the parameters of all detected spectral features. A clear dichotomy for the sulphur chemistry is seen: while CS, SiS, SO, and SO₂are abundantly present in IK Tau, only SO and SO₂are detected in R Dor. Also other species such as NaCl, NS, AlO, and AlOH display a completely different behaviour. From some selected species, the minor isotopologues can be used to assess the isotopic ratios. The channel maps of many species prove that both large and small-scale inhomogeneities persist in the inner wind of both stars in the form of blobs, arcs, and/or a disk. The high sensitivity of ALMA allows us to spot the impact of these correlated density structures in the spectral line profiles. The spectral lines often display a half width at zero intensity much larger than expected from the terminal velocity,v_∞, previously derived for both objects (36 km s⁻¹versusv_∞~ 17.7 km s⁻¹for IK Tau and 23 km s⁻¹versusv_∞~ 5.5 km s⁻¹for R Dor). Both a more complex 3D morphology and a more forceful wind acceleration of the (underlying) isotropic wind can explain this trend. The formation of fractal grains in the region beyond ~400 mas can potentially account for the latter scenario. From the continuum map, we deduce a dust mass of ~3.7 × 10⁻⁷M_⊙and ~2 × 10⁻⁸M_⊙for IK Tau and R Dor, respectively.Conclusions.The observations presented here provide important constraints on the properties of these two oxygen-dominated AGB stellar winds. In particular, the ALMA data prove that both the dynamical and chemical properties are vastly different for this high mass-loss rate (IK Tau) and low mass-loss rate (R Dor) star.

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics