The Initial Mass-Final Mass Relation of low- and intermediate-mass stars: constraints to the Asymptotic Giant Branch phase

The Initial-Final Mass Relation for low- and intermediate-mass stars links the mass of a white dwarf with the progenitor mass. It is a fundamental tool in both stellar evolution analysis (Asymptotic Giant Branch and white dwarf phases) and galaxy models (chemical evolution and luminosity contribution). In this thesis we investigate the main dependencies of the relation, so that the second dredge-up, the third dredge-up, the mass loss and the metallicity, comparing four theoretical models with a set of uniform semi-empirical data.