²²Ne and ²³Na ejecta from intermediate-mass stars: The impact of the new LUNA rate for ²²Ne(p,γ)²³Na

We investigate the impact of the new LUNA rate for the nuclear reaction 22Ne(p,γ)23Na on the chemical ejecta of intermediate-mass stars, with particular focus on the thermally- pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) stars that experience hot-bottom burning. To this aim we use the PARSEC and COLIBRI codes to compute the complete evolution, from the pre- main sequence up to the termination of the TP-AGB phase, for a few sets of stellar models with initial masses in the range 3.0 M⊙ − 6.0 M⊙ and three values of metallicity, Zi = 0.0005, Zi = 0.006, and Zi = 0.014. We compare the results of the Ne-Na nucleosynthesis obtained with the new LUNA rate and others available in the literature. We find that the improvement in the astrophysical S-factor obtained with LUNA has remarkably reduced the corresponding nuclear uncertainties in the 22Ne and 23Na AGB yields, which drop from factors of ≃ 10 to just a few for the lowest metallicity models. The uncertainties that still affect the 22Ne and 23Na AGB ejecta are mainly dominated by evolutionary aspects (efficiency of mass-loss, dredge-up events, convection). With the new LUNA data AGB stars with hot-bottom burning produce amounts of 23Na that are in between those predicted with NACRE and Iliadis et al. rates. Finally, we discuss how the LUNA results impact on the hypothesis that invokes primordial massive AGB and super-AGB stars as the main agents of the observed O-Na anticorrelation in Galactic globular clusters. In this context, we derive quantitative constraints on the efficiencies that should characterize other key physical processes (mass loss, third dredge-up, sodium destruction) in order to simultaneously reproduce both the Na-rich, O-poor extreme of the anticorrelation and the observational constraints on the CNO abundance. While best-fitting AGB models can be actually singled out, yet they cannot be taken as a theoretical piece in full support to the AGB hypothesis, as various issues still remain.