Related papers: Molecular studies of Planetary Nebulae
Planetary nebulae (PNe) provide tests of stellar evolution, can serve as tracers of chemical evolution in the Milky Way and other galaxies, and are also used as a calibrator of the cosmological distance ladder. Current and upcoming large…
The LMC is ideal for studying the co-evolution of planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars, in that the debilitating uncertainties of the Galactic PN distance scale and selection biases from attenuation by interstellar dust do not…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars (CSs) are ideal tools to test evolutionary theory: photospheric properties of their exciting stars give stringent constraints for theoretical predictions of stellar evolution. The nebular…
Detections of molecular lines, mainly from H2$ and CO, reveal molecular material in planetary nebulae. Observations of a variety of molecules suggest that the molecular composition in these objects differs from that found in interstellar…
The structure of the dusty circumstellar envelopes (CSEs) of proto-planetary nebulae (PPNs) reveals the mass-loss history of these sources and how such histories may differ for elliptical (SOLE) and bipolar (DUPLEX) PPNs. To study the PPN…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) exist in a range of different morphologies, from very simple and symmetric round shells, to elliptical, bipolar, and even quadrupolar shapes. They present extremely complex ensembles of filaments, knots, ansae, and…
Many aspects of the evolutionary phase in which Asymptotic Giant Branch stars (AGB stars) are in transition to become Planetary Nebulae (PNe) are still poorly understood. An important question is how the circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars…
It is likely that at least some planetary nebulae are composed of matter which was ejected from a binary star system during common-envelope (CE) evolution. For these planetary nebulae the ionizing component is the hot and luminous remnant…
The origin, evolution and role of magnetic fields in the production and shaping of proto-planetary and planetary nebulae (PPNe, PNe) is a subject of active research. Most PNe and PPNe are axisymmetric with many exhibiting highly collimated…
The study of the chemical evolution of gas and dust from pre-stellar dense cores to circumstellar disks around young stars forms an essential part of understanding star- and planet formation. Throughout the collapse- and protostellar…
We have obtained multi-wavelength observations of compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) to probe post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) evolution from the onset of nebular ejection. We analyze new observations from HST to derive the masses…
Two bipolar proto-planetary nebulae, IRAS16594-4656 and IRAS17150-3224, have been detected in various molecular lines, namely CO, ^{13}CO, HCN and CN, and remain undetected in several other species. CO(J=2-1) and CO(J=3-2) line profiles are…
We present our recent results on mm-wave CO observations of proto-planetary nebulae. These include high-resolution interferometric maps of various CO lines in three well known bipolar PPNe: M1-92, M2-56 and OH231.8+4.2. The global…
Planetary Nebulae (PNe) are amongst the most spectacular objects produced by stellar evolution, but the exact identity of their progenitors has never been established for a large and homogeneous observational sample. We investigate the…
A significant step forward in the understanding of Planetary Nebula (PN) formation can be achieved by exploring the connection of PN with stellar evolution. In particular, the initial mass of the star plays a crucial role, as it determines…
The presence of carbon-chain molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM) has been known since the early 1970s and $>130$ such species have been identified to date, making up $\sim 43$% of the total of detected ISM molecules. They are…
We have studied the effect of the mass of the central star (CS) on the gas evolution during the planetary nebula (PN) phase. We have performed numerical simulations of PN formation using CS tracks for six stellar core masses corresponding…
Emission and absorption line observations of molecules in late-type stars are a vital component in our understanding of stellar evolution, dust formation and mass loss in these objects. The molecular composition of the gas in the…
The morphologies of planetary nebula have long been believed to be due to wind shaping processes in which a fast wind from the central star impacts a previously ejected envelope. Asymmetries assumed to exist in the slow wind envelope lead…
The interaction of the ISM with the evolution of PNe is studied for cases where there is a large relative velocity between ISM and central star, for example for high-proper motion PNe. In such cases the ISM wind already interacts strongly…