Related papers: Planetary nebulae : getting closer to an unbiased …

Considerable effort has been applied towards understanding the precise shaping mechanisms responsible for the diverse range of morphologies exhibited by planetary nebulae (PNe). A binary companion is increasingly gaining support as a…

It is now clear that a binary pathway is responsible for a significant fraction of planetary nebulae, and the continually increasing sample of known central binaries means that we are now in a position to begin to use these systems to…

Planetary Nebulae represent a powerful window into the evolution of low-intermediate mass stars that have undergone extensive mass-loss. The nebula manifests itself in an extremely wide variety of shapes, but exactly how the mass lost is…

Planetary nebulae represent a potential late stage of stellar evolution, however the central stars (CSPNe) are relatively faint and therefore pertinent information is merely available for <20% of the Galactic sample. Consequently, the…

The role of central star binarity in the shaping of planetary nebulae (PNe) has been the subject of much debate, with single stars believed to be incapable of producing the most highly collimated morphologies. However, observational support…

Context: In recent years mid- and far infrared spectra of planetary nebulae have been analysed and lead to more accurate abundances. It may be expected that these better abundances lead to a better understanding of the evolution of these…

Close binary central stars of planetary nebulae (PNe) must have formed through a common envelope evolution during the giant phase experienced by one of the stars. Transfer of the angular momentum from the binary system to the envelope leads…

In 1997 Soker laid out a framework for understanding the formation and shaping of planetary nebulae (PN). Starting from the assumption that non-spherical PN cannot be formed by single stars, he linked PN morphologies to the binary…

I list the 16 planetary nebulae (PNe) known to contain close-binary nuclei, and show that the nebulae generally have axisymmetric structures, including elliptical, bipolar, or ring morphologies. The orbital periods range from 2.7 hr to 16…

Close binary central stars of planetary nebulae are key in constraining the poorly-understood common-envelope phase of evolution, which in turn is critical in understanding the formation of a wide-range of astrophysical phenomena (including…

Binary stars produce an array of dramatic astrophysical phenomena. They allow us to probe stellar structure, nuclear physics, and gravitational wave physics. They also produce the powerful supernovae that allow us to measure the scale of…

Shaping axi-symmetric planetary nebulae is easier if a companion interacts with a primary at the top of the asymptotic giant branch. To determine the impact of binarity on planetary nebula formation and shaping, we need to determine the…

Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…

We present a population synthesis calculation to derive the total number of planetary nebulae (PN) in the Galaxy that descend from single stars and stars in binary systems. Using the most recent literature results on galactic and stellar…

Close-binary central stars of planetary nebulae offer a unique tool with which to study the critical and yet poorly understood common-envelope phase of binary stellar evolution. Furthermore, as the nebula itself is thought to comprise the…

Our understanding of planetary nebulae has been significantly enhanced as a result of several recent large surveys (Parker et al., these proceedings). These new discoveries suggest that the `PN phenomenon' is in fact more heterogeneous than…

By examining their mass loss history and their distribution in the galaxy I argue that spherical planetary nebulae (PNe) form a special group among all planetary nebulae. The smooth surface brightness of most spherical PNe suggests that…

We review the evolution of our understanding of the planetary nebulae phenomenon and their place in the scheme of stellar evolution. The historical steps leading to our current understanding of central star evolution and nebular formation…

In a recent work Ciardullo et al. (1999) list 19 planetary nebulae surveyed by the Hubble Space Telescope for the presence of resolved visual binary companions of their central stars. For ten planetary nebulae they argue for probable…

Many, possibly most, stars form in binary and higher-order multiple systems. Therefore, the properties and frequency of binary systems provide strong clues to the star-formation process, and constraints on star-formation models. However,…