Dusty winds II. Observational Implications
  We compare observations of AGB stars and predictions of the Elitzur & Ivezic
(2001) steady-state radiatively driven dusty wind model. The model results are
described by a set of similarity functions of a single independent variable,
and imply general scaling relations among the system parameters. We find that
the model properly reproduces various correlations among the observed
quantities and demonstrate that dust drift through the gas has a major impact
on the structure of most winds. From data for nearby oxygen-rich and
carbon-rich mass-losing stars we find that (1) the dispersion in grain
properties within each group is rather small; (2) both the dust cross-section
per gas particle and the dust-to-gas mass ratio are similar for the two samples
even though the stellar atmospheres and grain properties are very different;
(3) the dust abundance in both outflows is significantly below the Galactic
average, indicating that most of the Galactic dust is not stardust - contrary
to popular belief, but in support of Draine (2009). Our model results can be
easily applied to recent massive data sets, such as the Spitzer SAGE survey of
the Large Magellanic Cloud, and incorporated in galaxy evolution models.
