Constraining the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch phase with resolved stellar populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Understand

Reliable models of the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase are of critical importance across astrophysics, including our interpretation of the spectral energy distribution of galaxies, cosmic dust production, and enrichment of the interstellar medium.

• With the aim of improving sets of stellar isochrones that include a detailed description of the TP-AGB phase, we extend our recent calibration of the AGB population in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to the more metal rich Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
• We model the LMC stellar populations with the TRILEGAL code, using the spatially-resolved star formation history derived from the VISTA survey.
• We characterize the efficiency of the third dredge-up by matching the star counts and the $K_{\rm s}$-band luminosity functions of the AGB stars identified in the LMC.