Abstract
Stars leaving the main sequence enter a luminous phase, during which circumstellar comet disks would be partially evaporated. Such a process could explain some observations of water masers and complex molecules in envelopes of giant and super-giant stars, and might provide a means of searching for Oort-type clouds—1;and by inference, past planetary formation—1around other stars.
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Stern, S., Shull, J. & Brandt, J. Evolution and detectability of comet clouds during post-main-sequence stellar evolution. Nature 345, 305–308 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1038/345305a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/345305a0
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