Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21545425k&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #454.25; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.472
Other
Scientific paper
Planetary nebulae (PNe) are useful probes of interstellar medium chemical composition, providing information about low- and intermediate-mass stellar nucleosynthesis affecting He, C, N, and sometimes O and Ne, while at the same time archiving progenitor abundances of heavier elements like Ar, Cl, and S. PNe have also been used to study disk abundance gradients in the Milky Way and other spirals. Here we present an abundance analysis of 37 anticenter PNe observed at APO. We combine these results with our previously obtained data to form a sample of 122 well-observed PNe with galactocentric distances ranging from 3 to 20 kpc, in an effort to examine the oxygen abundance gradient in the Milky Way.
In addition to deriving a gradient in a straightforward way from our data, we also undertook a statistical analysis that includes realistic uncertainties in both distances and oxygen abundances. The results indicate that any derived gradient is poorly constrained, consistent with no gradient. Uncertainties in distance and oxygen abundance, coupled with what are likely to be real differences in the PN oxygen abundance at a given Galactocentric radius, lead us to conclude that PNe may simply not be suitable for this type of investigation in the Milky Way.
KBK, RBCH and BB gratefully acknowledge support from NSF Grant #AST-806490.
Balick Bruce
Henry Richard B. C.
Jaskot Anne E.
Kwitter Karen B.
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