An optical spectrophotometric survey of abundances in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae

Optical spectroscopic data for 71 Planetary Nebulae (PN) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have been analysed. The line fluxes have been used to determine nebular temperatures, densities, and the abundances of He, N, O, Ne, and Ar, relative to H. In our sample there are 12 nebulae with N/O≽0.5, resembling Peimbert's Type I PN; six low-excitation (LE) objects [1≼I(5007)/I(Hβ)≼4]; and four very-low-excitation (VLE) nebulae [I(Hβ)>I(5007)], similar to the Galactic VLE class. Mean abundances have been calculated for the nebulae not in these special groups. After correction for collisional excitation contributions to the nebular He I lines, PN in the SMC and LMC yield mass fractions of Y=0.249±0.025 and Y=0.258±0.015, respectively. Compared with PN in our own Galaxy, the abundances of Ne and Ar, which are the elements in our sample least affected by nucleosynthesis, are lower by 0.6 and 0.35 dex for the SMC and LMC respectively. The oxygen and neon abundances in the Magellanic Cloud PN are the same as those previously found for H II regions in the LMC and SMC, but the nitrogen in PN is enhanced by 0.9 and 1.0 dex in each galaxy, respectively. This is found to be consistent with the processing of all of the original carbon to nitrogen by the CN cycle, operating in the progenitor stars at the time of the first dredge-up. This process seems to have operated much more efficiently in the metal-poor Magellanic Clouds than in the Milky Way, in agreement with theoretical predictions. Five Wolf–Rayet central stars are detected in the sample (two SMC, three LMC). The frequency of occurrence of these helium-rich central stars in low- and medium-excitation PN (15 per cent) is very similar to that of helium-rich white dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood, suggesting that events at the end of the AGB phase may be reponsible for the observed fractions of helium- and hydrogen-rich white dwarf stars

Neutral carbon far-red forbidden line emission from planetary nubulae

The temperature-sensitive neutral carbon forbidden lines at 8727, 9824 and 9850 Å have been measured simultaneously for the first time from a planetary nebula. The nebulae NGC 2346, NGC 2440, NGC 3132 and IC 4406 were observed. Accurate rest wavelengths of these lines are obtained. The observed line ratios I(λ9824+λ9850)/I(λ8727) are consistent with collisional excitation by electron impacts. It is demonstrated that radiative recombination and stellar continuum fluorescence are unimportant in exciting the observed [CI] lines, with the possible exception of NGC 2440 where a contribution from the former process cannot be ruled out. For NGC 2346, NGC 3132 and IC 4406, the observed [C I]line ratios yield electron temperatures between 7400 and 8000 K, about 1800 to 2800 K lower than those deduced from the [N II], [S III] and [O III] line ratios that we also measured. Electron densities are derived from the observed [N I], [S II] and [Cl III] doublet ratios

PNe abundances: Galactic bulge versus the disc

We compare the abundances of He, N, O, Ar, S, and Ne, determined in a similar way, for a sample of Galactic bulge and disc planetary nebulae (PNe). We find that in all aspects – average abundances and dispersion, distribution functions, abundance relationships, and the ratio of N/O – the bulge and disc PNe are indistinguishable. The nebular distribution of [O/H] is different to the stellar

The rich O II recombination spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 7009: new observations and atomic data

We present new spectrophotometric observations of the rich O II optical recombination line spectrum of the planetary nubula NGC 7009, obtained at a spectral resolution of about 1 Å (FWHM). New intermediate coupling quantal calculations of O II radiative recombination coefficients for the 3d-3p and 4f-3d transitions are presented. The effect of departure from pure LS-coupling is shown to be important. Excellent agreement is found between the observed relative intensities of the O II lines and those calculated from recombination theory allowing for intermediate coupling effects. C, N and O abundances based on our recombination line measurements are derived. In all cases, they are about a factor of 5 higher than the corresponding values deduced from collisionally excited lines, indicating that the discrepancy between the abundances derived from these two different types of emission lines, previously known to exist for C2+, is a common phenomenon, and is probably caused by the same physical process. The nature of this process is still not known. If the discrepancy is due to temperature fluctuations, the implied rms temperature fluctuation prameter t2 is about a factor of 2 larger than that derived by comparing the temperatures deduced from the [O III] forbidden line ratio and from the ratio of the nebular continuum Balmer discontinuity to Hβ. However, if we adopted the electron temperature derived from nebular contiuum Balmer discontinuity instead of that from the [O III]forbidden line ratio, the C and N abundances deduced from ultraviolet collisionally excited lines would come into agreement with those deduced from the optical recombination lines, although the abundance of oxygen deduced from the optical forbidden lines would still be a factor of 2 lower than the corresponding value obtained from the optical recombination lines. The O/H abundance ratio derived from our recombination line analysis of NGC 7009 is more than a factor of 2 higher than the solar oxygen abundance

The Planetary Nebula NGC 3918

A detailed study of the planetary nebula NGC 3918, based on UV, optical, and radio observations, is presented. The central star has a predicted V magnitude of 14.6 and a luminosity of 6000 solar luminosities for a distance of 1.5 kpc. A contour map of the nebula in H-beta light is given. Velocity profiles of forbidden O II optical lines show that O(+) ions are mostly located at the front and rear of the nebula. A composite, biconical model is constructed which consists of optically thick cones at the front and rear with a low-density 'equatorial' region. The nebular expansion age of about 3000 yr is in reasonable agreement with the age of the nucleus found from evolutionary tracks. Silicon, magnesium, and iron are depleted by factors of 4, 3, and 100 respectively. It is shown that the Mg II 2800 A lines are affected by interstellar absorption in this and many other planetaries and thus often cannot be used for abundance determinations

Photoionization modelling based on HST images of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae – I. SMC N 2 and SMC N 5

We construct fully self-consistent, detailed photoionization models for two planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), namely SMC N 2 and SMC N 5, to fit optical and UV spectrophotometric observations as well as HST Faint Object Camera (FOC) narrow-band images taken in the light of Hβ. The derived density structure shows that both PNe have a central cavity surrounded by a shell of decreasing density described by a parabolic curve. For both nebulae, our models fail to reproduce the HST images taken in the light of the [O III] λ 5007 line, in the sense that the observed [O III] λ 5007 surface brightness decreases more slowly outside the peak emission than predicted. An effective temperature of Teff = 111 500 K, a stellar surface gravity of log g = 5.45 and a luminosity of L* = 8430 Lʘ are derived for the central star of SMC N2; similarly Teff = 137 500 K, log g = 6.0 and L* = 5850 Lʘ are derived for SMC N 5. SMC N 2 is optically thin and has a total nebular mass (H plus He) of 0.180 Mʘ, while SMC N 5 is optically thick and has an ionized gas mass of 0.194 Mʘ. Using the H-burning SMC metal abundance (Z = 0.004) evolutionary tracks calculated by Vassiliadis & Wood, core masses of 0.674 Mʘ and 0.649Mʘ are derived for SMC N 2 and SMC N 5, respectively. Similarly, from the He-burning evolutionary tracks of Vassiliadis & Wood for progenitor stars of mean LMC heavy-element abundance (Z = 0.008), we find Mc = 0.695 and 0.675 Mʘ for SMC N 2 and SMC N 5, respectively. We find that Hβ images are needed if one is to derive accurate stellar luminosities directly from photoionization modelling. However, in the absence of an Hβ image, photoionization models based on [O III] images (and nebular line intensities) yield accurate values of Teff and log g, which in turn allow reliable stellar masses and luminosities to be derived from a comparison with theoretical evolutionary tracks. We show that the correct nebular ionized mass can be deduced from the nebular Hβ flux, provided the mean nebular density given by the C III] λ 1909/λ 1907 ratio is also known

Measurements of the 12C/13C ratio in Planetary Nebulae and implications for stellar evolution

We present the results of a study aimed at determining the 12C/13C ratio in two samples of planetary nebuale (PNe) by means of mm-wave observations of 12CO and 13CO. The first group includes six PNe which have been observed in the 3He+ hyperfine transition; the other group consists of 23 nebulae with rich molecular envelopes. We have determined the isotopic ratio in 14 objects and the results indicate a range of values between 9 and 23. In particular, three PNe have ratios well below the value predicted by standard evolutionary models (about 20), indicating that some extra-mixing process has occurred in these stars. We briefly discuss the implications of our results for standard and nonstandard stellar nucleosynthesis.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 1 Postscript figure. to appear in The Primordial Nuclei and Their Galactic Evolution, eds. N. Prantzos, M. Tosi, R. von Steiger (Kluwer: Dordrecht