ESO DOI Service

• Wittkowski, Markus [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Bladh, Sara [Uppsala University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sweden]
• Chiavassa, Andrea [Université Côte d’Azur, Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice, France]
• de Wit, Willem-Jan [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Eriksson, Kjell [Uppsala University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sweden]
• Freytag, Bernd [Uppsala University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sweden]
• Haubois, Xavier [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Höfner, Susanne [Uppsala University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sweden]
• Kravchenko, Kateryna [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Paladini, Claudia [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Paumard, Thibaut [LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France]
• Rau, Gioia [NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA; Catholic University of America, Department of Physics, Washington, DC, USA]
• Wood, Peter R. [Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, ANU, Canberra, Australia]

Mass loss from cool evolved stars is an important ingredient of the cosmic matter cycle, enriching the Universe with newly formed elements and dust. However, physical processes that are not considered in current models represent uncertainties in our general understanding of mass loss. Time-series of interferometric data provide the strongest tests of dynamical processes in the atmospheres of these stars. Here, we present a pilot study of such measurements obtained with the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer.