Colloquium Letizia Stanghellini – Advances in stellar and galactic evolution with the population of planetary nebula progenitors from the APOGEE DR17 survey

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are the ejected gas and dust shells of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars, which represent the late life of low- and intermediate-mass stars (LIMS). With the advent of the APOGEE DR17 survey, there is a purpose in comparing Red Giants (RGs) and PNe abundances to disclose their similarities and differences since such a comparison has been rarely, and not recently, done in the Milky Way. While we expect similarities in most of the alpha-element distributions across the two populations, given their limited evolution in LIMS, differences in Fe and S abundances allow us to determine their depletion due to grain condensation in post-AGB phases. Differences in N and C between PNe and their progenitors set new limits to their production in the late stages of LIMS evolution. Finally, we use radial metallicity gradients from RGs and PNe and Gaia-calibrated distances to constrain galaxy evolution in the framework of the current chemical evolution models.