New advances in photoionisation codes: How and what for?

The study of photoionised gas in planetary nebulae (PNe) has played a major role in the achievement, over the years, of a better understanding of a number of physical processes, pertinent to a broader range of fields than that of PNe studies, spanning from atomic physics to stellar evolution theories. Whilst empirical techniques are routinely employed for the analysis of the emission line spectra of these objects, the accurate interpretation of the observational data often requires the solution of a set of coupled equations, via the application of a photoionisation/plasma code. A number of large-scale codes have been developed since the late sixties, using various analytical or statistical techniques for the transfer of continuum radiation, mainly under the assumption of spherical symmetry and a few in 3D. These codes have been proved to be powerful and in many cases essential tools, but a clear idea of the underlying physical processes and assumptions is necessary in order to avoid reaching misleading conclusions. A brief review of the field of photoionisation today is given here, with emphasis on the recent developments, including the expansion of the models to the 3D domain. Attention is given to the identification of new available observational constraints and how these can used to extract useful information from realistic models. (abridged)Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, conference proceeding

The lifetime of protoplanetary discs: Observations and Theory

The time-scale over which and modality by which young stellar objects (YSOs) disperse their circumstellar discs dramatically influences the eventual formation and evolution of planetary systems. By means of extensive radiative transfer (RT) modelling, we have developed a new set of diagnostic diagrams in the infrared colour-colour plane (K-[24] vs. K-[8]), to aid with the classiffication of the evolutionary stage of YSOs from photometric observations. Our diagrams allow the differentiation of sources with un-evolved (primordial) discs from those evolving according to different clearing scenarios (e.g. homologous depletion vs. inside-out dispersal), as well as from sources that have already lost their disc. Classification of over 1500 sources in 15 nearby star-forming regions reveals that approximately 39% of the sources lie in the primordial disc region, whereas between 31% and 32% disperse from the inside-out and up to 22% of the sources have already lost their disc. Less than 2% of the objects in our sample lie in the homogeneous draining regime. Time-scales for the transition phase are estimated to be typically a few 10^5 years independent of stellar mass. Therefore, regardless of spectral type, we conclude that currently available infrared photometric surveys point to fast (of order 10% of the global disc lifetime) inside-out clearing as the preferred mode of disc dispersal.Comment: Conference Proceedings: The Labyrinth of Start Formation - 18-22 June Crete, Greec

A new algorithm for modelling photoionising radiation in smoothed particle hydrodynamics

We present a new fast algorithm which allows the simulation of ionising radiation emitted from point sources to be included in high-resolution three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of star cluster formation. We employ a Str\"omgren volume technique in which we use the densities of particles near the line-of-sight between the source and a given target particle to locate the ionisation front in the direction of the target. Along with one--dimensional tests, we present fully three--dimensional comparisons of our code with the three--dimensional Monte-Carlo radiative transfer code, MOCASSIN, and show that we achieve good agreement, even in the case of highly complex density fields.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRA

New advances in nebular photoionisation modelling

The study of photoionised gas in planetary nebulae (PNe) has played a major role achieving, over the years, a better understanding of a number of physical processes pertinent to a broader range of fields than just PNe studies, ranging from atomic physics to stellar evolution. Whilst empirical techniques are routinely employed for the analysis of the emission line spectra of such objects, the accurate interpretation of the observational data often requires the solution of the radiative transfer (RT) problem in the nebula, via the application of a photoionisation code.The development of the codes has been driven by the observational constraints available, but also compromised by the available computer power. Modern codes are faster and more flexible, with the ultimate goal being the achievement of a description of the observations relying on the smallest number of parameters possible. In this light, recent developments have been focused on the inclusion of new atomic data, the inclusion of a realistic treatment for dust grains mixed in the ionised and photon dominated regions (PDRs) and the expansion of some codes to PDRs with the inclusion of chemical reaction networks. Furthermore the last few years have seen the development of fully 3D photoionisation codes based on the Monte Carlo method. A review of the photoionisation codes currently in use is given here, with emphasis on recent developments, including the expansion of the models to the 3D domain, the identification of new observational constraints and how these can be used to extract useful information from realistic models.[Abridged]Comment: 11 pages, invited review to appear in Proc. IAU Symp. 234, Planetary Nebulae in Our Galaxy and Beyond (3-7 Apr 2006), eds. M.J. Barlow & R.H. Mendez (Cambridge Univ. Press

Three dimensional Monte Carlo simulations of ionized nebulae

The study of photoionized environments is fundamental to many astrophysical problems. Up to the present most photoionization codes have numerically solved the equations of radiative transfer by making the extreme simplifying assumption of spherical symmetry. Unfortunately very few real astronomical nebulae satisfy this requirement. To remedy these shortcomings, a self-consistent, three-dimensional radiative transfer code has been developed using Monte Carlo techniques. The code, Mocassin, is designed to build realistic models of photoionized nebulae having arbitrary geometries and density distributions with both the stellar and diffuse radiation fields treated self-consistently. In addition, the code is capable of treating one or more exciting stars located at non-central locations. The gaseous region is approximated by a cuboidal Cartesian grid composed of numerous cells. The physical conditions within each grid cell are determined by solving the thermal equilibrium and ionization balance equations. This requires a knowledge of the local primary and secondary radiation fields, which are calculated self-consistently by locally simulating the individual processes of ionization and recombination. The main structure and computational methods used in the Mocassin code are described in this thesis. Mocassin has been benchmarked against established one-dimensional spherically symmetric codes for a number of standard cases, as defined by the Lexington/Meudon photoionization workshops (Pequignot, 1986; Ferland et al., 1995; Pequignot et al., 2001). The results obtained for the benchmark cases are satisfactory and are presented in this work. A performance analysis has also been carried out and is discussed here. The code has been applied to construct a realistic model of the planetary nebula NGC 3918. Three different geometric models were tried, the first being the biconical density distribution already used by Clegg et al. (1987). In this model the nebula is approximated by a biconical structure of enhanced density, embedded in a lower density spherical region. Spindle-like density distributions were used for the other two models (models A and B). Model A used a mass distribution slightly modified from one of Mellema's (1996) hydrodynamical models that had already been adopted by Corradi et al. (1999) for their observational analysis of NGC 3918. The spindle-like model B instead used an analytical expression to describe the shape of the inner shell of this object as consisting of an ellipsoid embedded in a sphere. The effects of the interaction of the diffuse fields coming from two adjacent regions of different densities were investigated. These are found to be non-negligible, even for the relatively uncomplicated case of a biconical geometry. It was found that the ionization structure of low ionization species near the boundaries is particularly affected. All three models provided acceptable matches to the integrated nebular optical and ultraviolet spectrum. Large discrepancies were found between all of the model predictions of infrared fine-structure line fluxes and ISO SWS measurements. This was found to be largely due to an offset of ~ 14 arcsec from the centre of the nebula that affected all of the ISO observations of NGC 3918. For each model, projected emission-line maps and position-velocity diagrams from synthetic long-slit spectra were also produced, which could be compared to recent HST images and ground-based long-slit echelle spectra. This comparison showed that spindle-like model B provided the best match to the observations. It was therefore shown that although the integrated emission line spectrum of NGC 3918 can be reproduced by all three of the three-dimensional models investigated in this work, the capability of creating projected emission-line maps and position-velocity diagrams from synthetic long-slit spectra was crucial in constraining the structure of this object. A model of one of the hydrogen deficient knots (J3) of the born-again planetary nebula Abell 30 has also been constructed. Chemical and density inhomogeneities within the knots are included in order to reproduce the observed spectrum. The final model consists of a dense core of highly C-O-enriched material, surrounded by an optically thin envelope of hydrogen-deficient material with somewhat less enhanced C and O abundances. A simplified treatment of dust photoelectric heating was implemented for this model, and it was found that dust grains played a very important role in the energy balance of the knot, providing the dominant source of heating via their photoelectron emission in the optically thin outer layer. A dust-to-gas ratio of 0.05 by mass was sufficient to obtain a temperature structure in the knot, which was suitable for the observed spectroscopic features to be produced