Pedro Garcia-Lario

Astronomer

 

Main Research Fields

My main research interest is stellar evolution. In particular, the late stages of low- and intermediate-mass stars while they are evolving from the Asymptotic Giant Branch to the Planetary Nebula phase. This is a crucial phase in which dramatic morphological and chemical changes occur. These changes seem to strongly depend on the initial mass of the progenitor star and on the metallicity, which modulate the efficiency of the so-called 3rd dredge-up and the activation of hot bottom burning. Most of what we can learn from these stars must be studied in the infrared, since we are looking at heavily obscured sources surrounded by thick circumstellar envelopes formed during the strong mass lossing AGB phase. In this area I am particularly interested in the study of the solid state features detected in these stars by infrared space observatories like Herschel, ISO, Spitzer and Akari, from which a lot of information can be extracted. The main goal is to be able to describe how these features evolve during this short-lived phase and study the implications in the chemical evolution of galaxies.


Keywords

  • AGB stars
  • Post-AGB stars
  • Planetary Nebulae
  • Circumstellar shells
  • IR astronomy
  • Astromineralogy

Ongoing collaborations

  • IAC, Tenerife: A.Manchado and A.Garcia-Hernandez
  • Hamburg Observatory: D. Engels
  • N. Copernicus Astronomical Center, Torun: R. Szczerba
  • NOAO, Tucson, Arizona: L. Stanghellini
  • Universidad Autonoma de Madrid: E. Villaver

Publications

Publications

Project/mission at ESA

Gaia