Colloquium
Calibrating the Role of TP-AGB Stars in Galaxies

Abstract

Models of the Thermally Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB) stellar evolutionary phase play a critical role across astrophysics, from the chemical composition of meteorites in the pre-solar nebula up to galaxy evolution in the high-redshift Universe. In spite of its importance, the modelling of TP-AGB is still affected by large uncertainties which propagate into the field of extragalactic astronomy, impinging on the predicting power of current population synthesis models of galaxies in terms of their basic properties such as ages, masses and chemical enrichment. In this context I will review recent advances and ongoing efforts toward a physically-sound TP-AGB calibration that, moving beyond the classical use of the Magellanic Cloud clusters, combines increasingly refined TP-AGB stellar models with exceptionally high-quality data for resolved TP-AGB stars in nearby galaxies.