Planetary Nebulae: What can they tell us about close binary evolution?
Abstract
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 further our understanding of binary evolution. Binary central stars of planetary nebulae are key laboratories in understanding the formation processes of a wide-range of astrophysical phenomena - a point well-illustrated by the fact that the only known double-degenerate, super-Chandrasekhar mass binary which will merge in less than a Hubble time is found inside a planetary nebula. Here, I briefly outline our current understanding and avenues for future investigation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1507.05447,
title = {Planetary Nebulae: What can they tell us about close binary evolution?},
author = {David Jones},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.05447},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
To appear in the proceedings of "Physics of Evolved Stars 2015 - A conference dedicated to the memory of Olivier Chesneau" http://poe2015.sciencesconf.org/