Red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses (M☉)) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around 5,000 K (4,700 °C; 8,500 °F) or lower. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow-white to reddish-orange, including the spectral types K and M, sometimes G, but also class S stars and most carbon stars.
Red giants vary in the way by which they generate energy:
- most common red giants are stars on the red-giant branch (RGB) that are still fusing hydrogen into helium in a shell surrounding an inert helium core
- red-clump stars in the cool half of the horizontal branch, fusing helium into carbon in their cores via the triple-alpha process
- asymptotic-giant-branch (AGB) stars with a helium burning shell outside a degenerate carbon–oxygen core, and a hydrogen-burning shell just beyond that.
Many of the well-known bright stars are red giants because they are luminous and moderately common. The K0 RGB star
A red giant will usually produce a planetary nebula and become a white dwarf at the end of its life.
Characteristics
A red giant is a star that has exhausted the supply of hydrogen in its core and has begun
Among the asymptotic-giant-branch stars belong the carbon stars of type C-N and late C-R, produced when carbon and other elements are convected to the surface in what is called a dredge-up.[1] The first dredge-up occurs during hydrogen shell burning on the red-giant branch, but does not produce a large carbon abundance at the surface. The second, and sometimes third, dredge up occurs during helium shell burning on the asymptotic-giant branch and convects carbon to the surface in sufficiently massive stars.
The stellar limb of a red giant is not sharply defined, contrary to their depiction in many illustrations. Rather, due to the very low mass density of the envelope, such stars lack a well-defined photosphere, and the body of the star gradually transitions into a 'corona'.[2] The coolest red giants have complex spectra, with molecular lines, emission features, and sometimes masers, particularly from thermally pulsing AGB stars.[3] Observations have also provided evidence of a hot chromosphere above the photosphere of red giants,[4][5][6] where investigating the heating mechanisms for the chromospheres to form requires 3D simulations of red giants.[7]
Another noteworthy feature of red giants is that, unlike Sun-like stars whose photospheres have a large number of small convection cells (
Evolution
Red giants are evolved from
When the star exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core, nuclear reactions can no longer continue at the core and so the core begins to contract due to the diminishing force of the fusion, which used to push against gravity, and results in the core heating up. The increased temperature of the core causes hydrogen in a shell around the core to be burned and the star to expand.[11] The hydrogen-burning shell results in a situation that has been described as the mirror principle; when the core within the shell contracts, the layers of the star outside the shell must expand. The detailed physical processes that cause this are complex. Still, the behavior is necessary to satisfy simultaneous conservation of gravitational and thermal energy in a star with the shell structure. The core contracts and heats up due to the lack of fusion, and so the outer layers of the star expand greatly, absorbing most of the extra energy from shell fusion. This process of cooling and expanding is the subgiant star. When the envelope of the star cools sufficiently it becomes convective, the star stops expanding, its luminosity starts to increase, and the star is ascending the red-giant branch of the Hertzsprung–Russell (H–R) diagram.[10][12]
The evolutionary path the star takes as it moves along the red-giant branch depends on the mass of the star. For the Sun and stars of less than about 2 M☉
An analogous process occurs when the central helium is exhausted and the star collapses once again, causing helium in a shell to begin fusing. At the same time, hydrogen may begin fusion in a shell just outside the burning helium shell. This puts the star onto the asymptotic giant branch, a second red-giant phase.[15] The helium fusion results in the build-up of a carbon–oxygen core. A star below about 8 M☉ will never start fusion in its degenerate carbon–oxygen core.[13] Instead, at the end of the asymptotic-giant-branch phase the star will eject its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula with the core of the star exposed, ultimately becoming a white dwarf. The ejection of the outer mass and the creation of a planetary nebula finally ends the red-giant phase of the star's evolution.[10] The red-giant phase typically lasts only around a billion years in total for a solar mass star, almost all of which is spent on the red-giant branch. The horizontal-branch and asymptotic-giant-branch phases proceed tens of times faster.
If the star has about 0.2 to 0.5 M☉,[13] it is massive enough to become a red giant but does not have enough mass to initiate the fusion of helium.[9] These "intermediate" stars cool somewhat and increase their luminosity but never achieve the tip of the red-giant branch and helium core flash. When the ascent of the red-giant branch ends they puff off their outer layers much like a post-asymptotic-giant-branch star and then become a white dwarf.
Stars that do not become red giants
Very-low-mass stars are fully convective[16][17] and may continue to fuse hydrogen into helium for up to a trillion years[18] until only a small fraction of the entire star is hydrogen. Luminosity and temperature steadily increase during this time, just as for more-massive main-sequence stars, but the length of time involved means that the temperature eventually increases by about 50% and the luminosity by around 10 times. Eventually the level of helium increases to the point where the star ceases to be fully convective and the remaining hydrogen locked in the core is consumed in only a few billion more years. Depending on mass, the temperature and luminosity continue to increase for a time during hydrogen shell burning, the star can become hotter than the Sun and tens of times more luminous than when it formed although still not as luminous as the Sun. After some billions more years, they start to become less luminous and cooler even though hydrogen shell burning continues. These become cool helium white dwarfs.[9]
Very-high-mass stars develop into
Planets
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: May be outdated.(April 2015) |
Prospects for habitability
Although traditionally it has been suggested the evolution of a star into a red giant will render its
Enlargement of planets
As of 2023, several hundred giant planets have been discovered around giant stars.[23] However, these giant planets are more massive than the giant planets found around solar-type stars. This could be because giant stars are more massive than the Sun (less massive stars will still be on the main sequence and will not have become giants yet) and more massive stars are expected to have more massive planets. However, the masses of the planets that have been found around giant stars do not correlate with the masses of the stars; therefore, the planets could be growing in mass during the stars' red giant phase. The growth in planet mass could be partly due to accretion from stellar wind, although a much larger effect would be Roche lobe overflow causing mass-transfer from the star to the planet when the giant expands out to the orbital distance of the planet.[24]
Examples
Many of the well-known bright stars are red giants, because they are luminous and moderately common. The red-giant branch variable star
Red-giant branch
- Aldebaran (α Tauri)
- Arcturus (α Bootis)
- Gacrux (γ Crucis)
- ι Sculptoris
Red-clump giants
- Capella Aa (α Aurigae)
- κ Persei
- Schedar (α Cas)
- δ Andromedae[27]
Asymptotic giant branch
- Mira (ο Ceti)
- χ Cygni
- α Herculis
- η Geminorum
The Sun as a red giant
The Sun will exit the main sequence in approximately 5 billion years and start to turn into a red giant.[28][29] As a red giant, the Sun will grow so large (over 200 times its present-day radius) (1 AU) that it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and likely Earth. It will lose 38% of its mass growing, then will shrink into a white dwarf.[30]
References
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External links
Media related to Red giants at Wikimedia Commons