Model Dust Envelopes for Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars. I. OH/IR Stars

Abstract

OH/IR stars are the most massive and youngest subclass in asymptotic giant branch stars which pass through sporadic superwind phases. We have modeled the dust envelopes around OH/IR stars with close attention to the evolution of the structure of the dust shells. We use various dust density distribution to take account the effect of the superwind due to the helium shell flash by adding a density increased region, the model results are different from the results with conventional density distribution.. The new results fit the observations of some OH/IR stars better. Especially, the OH/IR stars with excessive 30-100§­ emission can be better explained by the new results. The IR two-color diagrams comparing the results of the superwind models and IRAS observation of 95 OH/IR stars have been made. The new results can explain much wider regions on the IR two-color diagrams.