A study of the close environments of evolved stars from SiO masers

Autor: Francisco Colomer, Javier Alcolea, Valentin Bujarrabal, C. Sánchez Contreras, R. Soria-Ruiz, J. F. Desmurs
Rok vydání: 2007
Předmět:
Zdroj: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union. 3:271-278
ISSN: 1743-9221
1743-9213
Popis: SiO maser emission allows us to study the innermost circumstellar layers around AGB and post-AGB stars, at a few AU from the stellar photosphere, what is crucial to understand the mass loss process in AGB stars and the jet launching mechanisms in post-AGB stars. Observations of SiO masers are also useful to address the question of the pumping mechanism itself, still under debate. In particular, VLBI observations of such emissions enables the study of the innermost shells with extremely high spatial resolution, equivalent (in nearby stars) to a few 1012 cm, about one tenth of the stellar radius. In this contribution, recent results on this topic obtained by our group are summarized.
Databáze: OpenAIRE