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Dust around First-Ascent Red Giants
We examine models for the physical conditions in the dust envelopesaround the closest and most conspicuous examples of luminosity class IIIred giants with infrared excesses such as delta And. (1) It has beenpreviously suggested that the dust is sporadically ejected from thestars, but for most such stars, this model seems unlikely. (2) Anotherpossibility is that in some cases we might be witnessing emission frominterstellar dust that happens to be near the star, a ``cirrus hotspot.'' Since 70% of the red giants with infrared excesses lie within100 pc of the Galactic plane where this phenomenon must sometimes occur,many of the excesses might be explained by this effect. However, adifficulty with this model for at least a few bright sources is that ifthe clouds have a uniform density, we expect sizes at 60 μm that areabout a factor of 10 larger than found for the best studied examples. Itseems likely that some class III giants do possess circumstellar dust.(3) The inferred mass of dust around some class III red giants is largerthan 10^26 g, more matter than would be expected when a Vega-type starevolves off the main sequence. Because the dust is inferred to be morethan 100 AU from the star, we hypothesize that the large inferred dustmasses is the result of the disintegration of comets. This model can betested by using the Space Infrared Telescope Facility to measure the 60μm sizes.
| A Search for Lithium-Rich Giants among Stars with Infrared Excesses
The unusual nature of the single, rapidly rotating, lithium-rich K giantHDE 233517, which is currently undergoing significant mass loss,prompted a search for giants with similar properties. High-dispersionspectroscopic observations were obtained of HD 219025, a knownlithium-rich infrared-excess giant, plus 39 stars from a list of G and Kgiants with excess far-infrared emission. The projected rotationalvelocities of the vast majority of infrared-excess giants appear to besimilar to those of normal G and K giants. Six giants have lithiumabundances at or above theoretical upper envelope values. The percentageof such stars in the sample of 39 infrared-excess giants is similar tothat of normal giants. The three giants with the largest lithiumabundances have previously been discovered. None of the sample of 39giants have an Hα line similar to the broadened and veryasymmetric line of HDE 233517. The star with optical properties mostsimilar to HDE 233517 is HD 219025.
| Li-rich giants: A survey based on IRAS colours
In a previous work we studied the IRAS colours of known Li-rich redgiants and showed that they have flux ratiosF12/F25 and F25/F60 in welldefined ranges. By using this result as a selection criterion, weprepared a list of 280 IRAS Point Source candidates to be Li-rich giantstars. Up to the present we have obtained spectra for 57% of our targetlist. We identified five stars showing a strong LiI 670.079 nm line andsix ones with a Li line of medium strength. Most of the candidates showfeatures typical of normal giants having circumstellar dust, asindicated by their IRAS colours. Observations collected at theLaboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica - LNA, Brazil; Observatoire de HauteProvence - OHP, France; European Southern Observatory - ESO, Chile.
| Giants with infrared excess.
We have correlated optical and infrared catalogs in order to extract alarge sample of luminosity class III stars with known infrared fluxdensities. For a non-negligible fraction of G and K giants, afar-infrared excess emission was found, starting beyond 25μm. Anexplanation in terms of present-day mass loss thus becomes unlikely,since the dust should then be warmer and the excess emission less far inthe infrared. We believe that the far-infrared excesses of theseobjects, most likely first-ascent giants, are related to the Vegaphenomenon. The dusty disks around these stars, gradually cooled downduring their main-sequence phase, could be reheated once the star leavesthe main sequence and enters the luminous post-main-sequence phase. Thefairly large sample we constructed enables us to derive an estimationfor the occurrence of excesses. This fraction of G or K giants withfar-infrared excess appears to be distinctly smaller than amongmain-sequence stars. Since the higher radiation field of giants couldlead to a larger evaporation rate of the circumstellar debris, this factdoes not conflict with our hypothesis.
| On a Rapid Lithium Enrichment and Depletion of K Giant Stars
A model scenario has recently been introduced by de la Reza andcolleagues to explain the presence of very strong Li lines in thespectra of some low-mass K giant stars. In this scenario all ordinary,Li-poor, K giants become Li rich during a short time (~105 yr) whencompared to the red giant phase of 5 x 107 yr. In this "Li period," alarge number of the stars are associated with an expanding thincircumstellar shell supposedly triggered by an abrupt internal mixingmechanism resulting in a surface new 7Li enrichment. This Letterpresents nearly 40 Li-rich K giants known up to now. The distribution ofthese Li-rich giants, along with 41 other observed K giants that haveshells but are not Li rich, in a color-color IRAS diagram confirms thisscenario, which indicates, also as a new result, that a rapid Lidepletion takes place on a timescale of between ~103 and 105 yr. Thismodel explains the problem of the presence of K giants with far-infraredexcesses presented by Zuckerman and colleagues. Other present and futuretests of this scenario are briefly discussed.
| Luminosity Class III Stars with Excess Far-Infrared Emission
Abstract image available at:http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?1995ApJ...446L..79Z&db_key=AST
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Ophiucus |
| Right ascension: | 16h58m09.51s |
| Declination: | -14°22'20.9" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 7.191 |
| Distance: | 118.906 parsecs |
| Proper motion RA: | -5.5 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -2.8 |
| B-T magnitude: | 9.215 |
| V-T magnitude: | 7.359 |
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