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Title:
Large Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebula Morphology: Probing Stellar Populations and Evolution
Authors:
Stanghellini, Letizia; Shaw, Richard A.; Balick, Bruce; Blades, J. Chris
Affiliation:
AA(Affiliated with the Astrophysics Division, Space Science Department of ESA; on leave from Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna), AB(Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218), AC(Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195), AD(Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218)
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 534, Issue 2, pp. L167-L171. (ApJL Homepage)
Publication Date:
05/2000
Origin:
UCP
ApJ Keywords:
GALAXIES: MAGELLANIC CLOUDS, ISM: PLANETARY NEBULAE: GENERAL, STARS: AGB AND POST-AGB, STARS: EVOLUTION
DOI:
10.1086/312667
Bibliographic Code:
2000ApJ...534L.167S

Abstract

Planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) offer the unique opportunity to study both the population and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, by means of the morphological type of the nebula. Using observations from our LMC PN morphological survey, and including images available in the Hubble Space Telescope Data Archive and published chemical abundances, we find that asymmetry in PNe is strongly correlated with a younger stellar population, as indicated by the abundance of elements that are unaltered by stellar evolution (Ne, Ar, and S). While similar results have been obtained for Galactic PNe, this is the first demonstration of the relationship for extragalactic PNe. We also examine the relation between morphology and abundance of the products of stellar evolution. We found that asymmetric PNe have higher nitrogen and lower carbon abundances than symmetric PNe. Our two main results are broadly consistent with the predictions of stellar evolution if the progenitors of asymmetric PNe have on average larger masses than the progenitors of symmetric PNe. The results bear on the question of formation mechanisms for asymmetric PNe-specifically, that the genesis of PNe structure should relate strongly to the population type, and by inference the mass, of the progenitor star and less strongly on whether the central star is a member of a close binary system. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and from the HST Data Archive, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of universities for research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.
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