The current paradigm in planet formation theory is developed around a hierarquical growth of solid bodies, from interstellar dust grains to rocky planetary cores. A particularly difficult phase in the process is the growth from meter-size boulders to planetary embryos of the size of our Moon or Mars. Objects of this size are expected to drift extremely rapid in a protoplanetary disk, so that they would generally fall into the central star well before larger bodies can form. In this thesis, we used numerical simulations to find a physical mechanism that may retain solids in some parts of protoplanetary disks long enough to allow for the formation of planetary embryos. We found that such accumulation can happen at the borders of so-called dead zones. These dead zones would be regions where the coupling to the ambient magnetic field is weaker and the turbulence is less strong, or maybe even absent in some cases. We show by hydrodynamical simulations that material accumulating between the turbulent active and dead regions would be trapped into vortices to effectively form planetary embryos of Moon to Mars mass. We also show that in disks that already formed a giant planet, solid matter accumulates on the edges of the gap the planet carves, as well as at the stable Lagrangian points. The concentration is strong enough for the solids to clump together and form smaller, rocky planets like Earth. Outside our solar system, some gas giant planets have been detected in the habitable zone of their stars. Their wakes may harbour rocky, Earth-size worlds.

Stellar chemical abundances provide astronomers with vital information about the production of chemical elements. Some stars preserve the composition of the environment in which they were born on their surfaces. By analysing the light from a star, the abundances of elements, its age and its path in space can be derived, and translated into the language of galactic history. The spallative history of boron in the early Galaxy was reinvestigated by observations of an ultraviolet spectral line in the old star HD 140283 with the Hubble Space Telescope. The line was barely detected and the upper limit abundance derived was lower than expected, which calls for further observations of this line in halo stars. Stars evolved into subgiants were observed with the ESO CAT, La Silla, and NOT, La Palma, to deduce their usefulness for galactic evolution studies. The high resolution spectroscopy study of the 26 objects showed that these stars are indeed useful for such studies. They are more luminous than dwarf stars and their ages can be accurately derived. They do not seem to have changed their surface abundances due to their evolution into giants. Subgiants can successfully be used to observationally reach regions further from the Earth, which can remove local biases that may appear when only observing nearby dwarf stars. A NLTE investigation of neutral Ca showed that cool metal rich dwarf stars did not deviate significantly from LTE, as had earlier been suggested. By an LTE analysis of a sample of 17 such dwarfs, using recent MARCS atmospheres, synthetic spectroscopy and modern atomic line data, cool metal rich dwarfs were shown not to deviate significantly from the expected abundance patterns in a number of elements. This increases the number of potential targets for studies of galactic chemical evolution in the metal rich regime since most stars are cool.

Carbon is the basis for life, as we know it, but its origin is still largely unclear. Carbon-rich Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars (carbon stars) play an important rôle in the cosmic matter cycle and may contribute most of the carbon in the Galaxy. In this thesis it is explored how the dust-driven mass loss of these stars depends on the basic stellar parameters by computing a large grid of wind models. The existence of a critical wind regime and mass-loss thresholds for dust-driven winds are confirmed. Furthermore, a steep dependence of mass loss on carbon excess is found. Exploratory work on the effects of different stellar metallicities and the sizes of dust grains shows that strong dust-driven winds develop also at moderately low metallicities, and that typical sizes of dust grains affect the wind properties near a mass-loss threshold. It is demonstrated that the mass-loss rates obtained with the wind models have dramatic consequences when used in models of carbon-star evolution. A pronounced superwind develops soon after the star becomes carbon rich, and it therefore experiences only a few thermal pulses as a carbon star before the envelope is lost. The number of dredge-up events and the thermal pulses is limited by a self-regulating mechanism: each thermal pulse dredges up carbon, which increases the carbon excess and hence also the mass-loss rate. In turn, this limits the number of thermal pulses. The mass-loss evolution during a thermal pulse (He-shell flash) is considered as an explanation of the observations of so-called detached shells around carbon stars. By combining models of dust-driven winds with a stellar evolution model, and a simple hydrodynamic model of the circumstellar envelope, it is shown that wind properties change character during a He-shell flash such that a thin detached gas shell can form by wind-wind interaction. Finally, it is suggested that carbon stars are responsible for much of the carbon in the interstellar medium, but a scenario where high-mass stars are major carbon producers cannot be excluded. In either case, however, the carbon abundances of the outer Galactic disc are relatively low, and most of the carbon has been released quite recently. Thus, there may neither be enough carbon, nor enough time, for more advanced carbon-based life to emerge in the outer Galaxy. This lends some support to the idea that only the mid-part of the Galactic disc can be a “Galactic habitable zone”, since the inner parts of the Galaxy are plagued by frequent supernova events that are presumably harmful to all forms of life.

Aim. In this project, theoretical models of dust driven winds of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars with effective temperatures within a range of 2400 − 3200 [K] and relative carbon-to-oxygen abundance C/O > 1 are studied. The aim is to understand if and how a detailed description of the grain size in winds of carbon rich AGB stars affects the wind formation and wind driving processes. Method. The computations were performed with a well tested FORTRAN code by calculating a grid of 60 models with different stellar parameters using grain size-dependent opacities. The results were then compared with models where the small particle approximation (SPA) had been used. Conclusions. The results indicate a certain dependency on grain size of the wind properties. The results from the computations of the majority of the models show no significant diferences however, especially not for the mass loss rates. Thus earlier computations performed using the SPA need not necessarily to be rejected.