The evolution and spectral properties of stars on the AGB are significantly
affected by mass loss through dusty stellar winds. Dynamic atmosphere and wind
models are an essential tool for studying these evolved stars, both
individually and as members of stellar populations, to understand their
contribution to the integrated light and chemical evolution of galaxies.
This paper is part of a series testing state-of-the-art atmosphere and wind
models of carbon stars against observations, and making them available for use
in various theoretical and observational studies.
We have computed low-resolution spectra and photometry (in the wavelength
range 0.35-25 mu) for a grid of 540 dynamic models with stellar parameters
typical of solar-metallicity C-rich AGB stars and with a range of pulsation
amplitudes. The models cover the dynamic atmosphere and dusty outflow (if
present), assuming spherical symmetry, and taking opacities of gas-phase
species and dust grains consistently into account. To characterize the
time-dependent dynamic and photometric behaviour of the models in a concise way
we defined a number of classes for models with and without winds.
Comparisons with observed data in general show a quite good agreement for
example regarding mass-loss rates vs. (J-K) colours or K magnitudes vs. (J-K)
colours. Some exceptions from the good overall agreement, however, are found
and attributed to the range of input parameters (e.g. relatively high carbon
excesses) or intrinsic model assumptions (e.g. small particle limit for grain
opacities).
While current results indicate that some changes in model assumptions and
parameter ranges should be made in the future to bring certain synthetic
observables into better agreement with observations, it seems unlikely that
these pending improvements will significantly affect the mass-loss rates of the
models.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figures. Table B.1, an 11-page table, is only available
at CD