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The missing mass conundrum of post-common-envelope planetary nebulae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2019

Miguel Santander-García
Affiliation:
Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Alfonso XII, 3, 28014, Madrid, Spain email: m.santander@oan.es
David Jones
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofí-sica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain Departamento de Astrofí-sica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
Javier Alcolea
Affiliation:
Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Alfonso XII, 3, 28014, Madrid, Spain email: m.santander@oan.es
Roger Wesson
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower St, London, UK European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Córdova 3107, Casilla 19001, Santiago, Chile
Valentín Bujarrabal
Affiliation:
Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Alfonso XII, 3, 28014, Madrid, Spain email: m.santander@oan.es
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Abstract

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Most planetary nebulae (PNe) show beautiful, axisymmetric morphologies despite their progenitor stars being essentially spherical. Angular momentum provided by a close binary companion is widely invoked as the main agent that would help eject an axisymmetric nebula, after a brief phase of engulfment of the secondary within the envelope of the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star, known as a common envelope (CE). The evolution on the AGB would thus be interrupted abruptly, its (still quite) massive envelope fully ejected to form the PN, which should be more massive than a PN coming from the same star were it single. We test this hypothesis by deriving the ionised+molecular masses of a pilot sample of post-CE PNe and comparing them to a regular PNe sample. We find the mass of post-CE PNe to be actually lower, on average, than their regular counterparts, raising some doubts on our understanding of these intriguing objects.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
© International Astronomical Union 2019 

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