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| Paper: |
On the Evolutionary Status of Extremely Hot Helium Stars — are O(He) Stars Successors of RCrB Stars? |
| Volume: |
348, Astrophysics in the Far Ultraviolet: Five Years of Discovery with FUSE |
| Page: |
194 |
| Authors: |
Rauch, T.; Reiff, E.; Werner, K.; Herwig, F.; Koesterke, L.; Kruk, J.W. |
| Abstract: |
95% of all stars end their lives as white dwarfs. About 20% of the hot post-AGB stars are hydrogen deficient. Most of these are the result of a late helium-shell flash, but the evolutionary status of a fraction of about 10-20% of the hottest hydrogen-deficient stars, namely four O(He) stars, is as yet unexplained. They could be the long-searched hot successors of RCrB stars, which have not been identified up to now. If this turns out to be true, then a third post-AGB evolutionary sequence is revealed, which is probably the result of a double degenerate merging process. More generally, understanding details of merging double degenerate stars is of interest in the context of SN Ia events and hence cosmology. |
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