Starlight and Sandstorms: Mass Loss Mechanisms on the AGB

Abstract

There are strong observational indications that the dense slow winds of cool luminous AGB stars are driven by radiative pressure on dust grains which form in the extended atmospheres resulting from pulsation-induced shocks. For carbon stars, detailed models of outflows driven by amorphous carbon grains show good agreement with observations. Some still existing discrepancies may be due to a simplified treatment of cooling in shocks, drift of the grains relative to the gas, or effects of giant convection cells or dust-induced pattern formation. For stars with C/O < 1, recent models indicate that absorption by silicate dust is probably insuffcient to drive their winds. A possible alternative is scattering by Fe-free silicate grains with radii of a few tenths of a micron. In this scenario one should expect less circumstellar reddening for M- and S-type AGB stars than for C-stars with comparable stellar parameters and mass loss rates.