Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Planetary Nebulae as Green Galactic Citizens
Abstract
We review gas-phase abundances in PNe and describe their dual utility as archives of original progenitor metallicity via the alpha elements, as well as sources of processed material from nucleosynthesis during the star's evolution, i.e., C, N, and s-process elements. We describe the analysis of PN spectra to derive abundances and discuss the discrepancies that arise from different choices at each step. Abundance results for the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds from various groups of investigators are presented; the observational results are compared with theoretical predictions of AGB stellar yields. Finally, we suggest areas where more work is needed to improve our abilities to determine abundances in PNe.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1109.2502,
title = {Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Planetary Nebulae as Green Galactic Citizens},
author = {K. B. Kwitter and R. B. C. Henry},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.2502},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
8 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Invited review presented at the IAU Symposium No. 283, Planetary Nebulae: an Eye to the Future