Mass and metallicity distribution of parent AGB stars of presolar SiC

¹ INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo, Via Mentore Maggini snc, 64100 Teramo, Italy
e-mail: sergio.cristallo@inaf.it
² INFN, Sezione di Perugia, Via A. Pascoli snc, 06123 Perugia, Italy
³ Aix Marseille Univ., CNRS, CNES, LAM, Marseille, France
⁴ INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G.B. Tiepolo 11, 34143 Trieste, Italy
⁵ IFPU, Istitute for the Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34151 Grignano, Trieste, Italy
⁶ Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sterwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
⁷ Laboratory for Space Sciences and Physics Department, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
⁸ McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
⁹ Gran Sasso Science Institute, Viale Francesco Crispi, 7, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
¹⁰ Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

Received: 22 September 2020
Accepted: 16 October 2020

Abstract

The vast majority (≳90%) of presolar SiC grains identified in primitive meteorites are relics of ancient asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, whose ejecta were incorporated into the Solar System during its formation. Detailed characterization of these ancient stardust grains has revealed valuable information on mixing processes in AGB interiors in great detail. However, the mass and metallicity distribution of their parent stars still remains ambiguous, although such information is crucial to investigating the slow neutron-capture process, whose efficiency depends on mass and metallicity. Using a well-known Milky Way chemo-dynamical model, we followed the evolution of the AGB stars that polluted the Solar System at 4.57 Gyr ago and weighted the stars based on their SiC dust productions. We find that presolar SiC in the Solar System predominantly originated from AGB stars with M ∼ 2 M_⊙ and Z ∼ Z_⊙. Our finding well explains the grain-size distribution of presolar SiC identified in situ in primitive meteorites. Moreover, it provides complementary results to very recent papers that characterized parent stars of presolar SiC.