Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars represent one of the main stellar sources for production of dust in the Universe. We provide a description of the formation and growth of dust particles in the circumstellar envelope of AGBs, starting from detailed calculations of the AGB evolutionary phase. We use stellar population synthesis to interpret the

We present a new method (BUBBLY) for detecting expanding components of ionized gas using integral field spectroscopy, showing its capabilities not only in detecting but also in obtaining the key physical parameters of the expanding shells: their expansion velocities and masses. The main advantages are that the detection is performed automatically

In this work we explore how the use of dynamical model atmospheres has an impact on the chemical abundances derived in O-rich (massive) AGB stars. In particular, we study the effect on the Rb and Zr abundances derived from the resonant 7800 Å Rb I line and the 6474 Å ZrO bandhead, respectively. Interestingly, our new Rb abundances, including a

The chemical content of the planetary nebula NGC 3918 is investigated through deep, high-resolution (R˜40,000) UVES at VLT spectrophotometric data. We identify and measure more than 750 emission lines, making ours one of the deepest spectra ever taken for a planetary nebula. Among these lines we detect very faint lines of several neutron-capture

We report on our ongoing project ``Statistical studies of HII regions in the nearby extra-galaxies''. We present an overview of our detailed study of warm dust in the nearby Galaxy NGC 4321 (M100), measuring the flux values in the 4 Spitzer-IRAC bands of some 275 HII regions in M100. In addition, we present new measurements of the flux values in

Orbital properties of hot Jupiters depend on the temperature and rotation rate of their host stars. These observed correlations provide some of the very few constraints on their dynamical evolution. However, almost all the objects available to such studies orbit around relatively slow rotators, with stellar rotation periods usually several times