FAST search for circumstellar atomic hydrogen. III. Planetary nebulae at Galactic latitudes |b|>10degree
Abstract
The detection of circumstellar atomic hydrogen (\ion{H}{1}) via the 21\,cm line remains a persistent challenge in planetary nebula (PN) studies, primarily due to contamination from ubiquitous interstellar \ion{H}{1} 21\,cm emission. In this paper, we report the results of a \ion{H}{1} survey of 12 high surface brightness PNe located at Galactic latitudes , performed with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), which is currently the most sensitive telescope in the band. Although the contamination from interstellar emission is still severe, we detect or tentatively detect circumstellar \ion{H}{1} 21\,cm absorption associated with two PNe: NGC\,6905 and NGC\,7662. \ion{H}{1} exhibits a comparatively high detection frequency in bipolar PNe. We estimate the \ion{H}{1} masses of the two PNe to range from 0.01 to 0.14 , resulting in atomic-to-ionized hydrogen ratios of 0.02--0.3. The \ion{H}{1} shells have dynamical ages of 2100--2400 years. Our measurements confirm previous findings that the optical depth of \ion{H}{1} decreases with increasing linear radius of the nebula. The mass loss rates traced by the \ion{H}{1} absorption are larger than 10\,M yr, indicating that they originate from the superwind phase at the tip of the asymptotic giant branch.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.00414,
title = {FAST search for circumstellar atomic hydrogen. III. Planetary nebulae at Galactic latitudes |b|>10degree},
author = {Xu-Jia Ouyang and Yong Zhang and Albert Zijlstra and Chuan-Peng Zhang and Jun-ichi Nakashima and Quentin A Parker and Xiao-Hu Li},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.00414},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
14 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in AJ