Found 6 talks width keyword AGB and post-AGB

Globular clusters (GCs) are fascinating objects nearly as old as the Universe that provide insight on a large variety of astrophysical and cosmological processes. However, their formation and their early and long-term evolution are far from being understood. In particular, the classical paradigm describing GCs as large systems of coeval stars formed out of chemically homogeneous material has been definitively swept away by recent high-precision spectroscopic and deep photometric observations. These data have provided undisputed evidence that GCs host multiple stellar populations, with very peculiar chemical properties. In this talk, I will review the properties of these multiple populations, before presenting the different scenarios that have been proposed to describe their formation. I will focus on the (many) current theoretical issues and open questions. 

 In this talk I will present the our work on an exotic group  
of evolved objects: post-AGB and post-RGB stars and the excellent  
constraints they provide for single and binary star evolution and  
nucleosynthesis. These objects have also revealed new evolutionary  
channels and AGB nucleosynthesis which is vital for understanding the  
complex chemical evolution of our Galaxy as well as external galaxies.

All the elements from carbon to uranium present in the Solar System were produced by hundreds to thousands of stars belonging to different stellar generations that evolved and died during the presolar evolution of the Galaxy. Using the abundances of radioactive nuclei inferred from meteoritic analysis we can date the last of these stellar additions. We have found that the last contribution of elements such as carbon and slow neutron-capture elements to the Solar System from an asymptotic giant branch star occurred 15-30 Myr before the formation of the Sun. This provides us with an upper limit of the time when the precursor material of the Solar System became isolated from the bulk of the galactic material. Interestingly, it compares well to the lifetime of high-mass molecular clouds suggesting that the Sun was born in a very large family of stars.

ExPo is an imaging polarimeter that has been built in Utrecht University. ExPo works in the visible, and it combines the dual-beam technique, together with very short exposure times and a high polarization sensitivity. After four successful campaigns at the William Herschel Telescope, we have obtained polarization images of circumstellar environments around T Tau's and Herbig Ae's stars, evolved (post-AGB) stars and planets like Venus and Saturn. Our results prove the utility of imaging polarimetry to characterize faint structures around very different objects. In this talk I will go through the instrument details, and I will show some of our science results.