"Spectral Analysis of Hot Stars - Old Fashioned or Trendy? Investigating Final Stages of Intermediate Mass Stars"
 Thomas Rauch (Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Tübingen, Germany)

ABSTRACT:
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 Post-AGB stars at their hottest stage of stellar evolution play a
key role in our understanding of AGB nucleosynthesis, insertion of
metals in the interstellar mediums, and chemical evolution of our
Galaxy. Their analysis requires high-resolution, high S/N spectra
in the ultraviolet to X-ray range, where most of the strategic metal
lines are located. These are obtained with satellite missons like e.g.
HST (STIS, COS), FUSE, CHANDRA, or XMM-Newton. Adequate fully
metal-line blanketed model atmospheres are required that allow
deviation from the local thermodynamical equilibrium.

 The Tuebingen NLTE Model-Atmosphere Package (TMAP) calculates such
model atmospheres and spectral energy distributions at a high level
of sophistication. We discuss the reliability of model-atmosphere codes
and show successful applications of hydrostatic TMAP models to
spectral analyses of (pre) white dwarfs, white dwarfs in novae during
their supersoft phase following an outburst, and to neutron stars in
low-mass X-ray binaries.
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