Discovery of stars surrounded by iron dust in the LMC

Abstract

We consider a small sample of oxygen-rich, asymptotic giant branch stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope, exhibiting a peculiar spectral energy distribution, which can be hardly explained by the common assumption that dust around AGB stars is primarily composed of silicate grains. We suggest that this uncommon class of objects are the progeny of a metal-poor generation of stars, with metallicity $Z \sim 1-2\times 10^{-3}$, formed $\sim 100$ Myr ago. The main dust component in the circumstellar envelope is solid iron. In these stars the poor formation of silicates is set by the strong nucleosynthesis experienced at the base of the envelope, which provokes a scarcity of magnesium atoms and water molecules, required to the silicate formation. The importance of the present results to interpret the data from the incoming James Webb Space Telescope is also discussed.