An X-ray Search for Companions to the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae

Details An X-ray Search for Companions to the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae An X-ray Search for Companions to the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae

Jan 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21534206m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #342.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.448

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

A variety of sculpting mechanisms have been proposed to explain the dazzling array of planetary nebula (PN) morphologies. Many of these mechanisms require the presence of powerful jets and/or strong magnetic fields at the PN central star (CSPN). The ultimate origin of such jets and magnetic fields is widely assumed to be the influence of a binary companion to the CSPN. Confirming the presence of a binary system within a PN is a notoriously difficult task, however. To explore the potential of X-ray imaging spectroscopy as a binary CSPN detection tool, we observed two PNe known to harbor binary systems, HFG 1 and DS 1, with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Both CSPNe were detected. The X-ray spectra of both of these objects, as well as that of LoTr 5 (a known binary CSPNe detected by ROSAT, Chandra, and XMM-Newton), reveal hot (> 10MK) thermal plasmas indicative of coronal activity. Such activity can most likely be traced to the main sequence companion in each system; these companions likely have accreted angular momentum as the more rapidly evolving primary (PN progenitor) star in each system drove its asymptotic giant branch wind. The X-ray spectral and temporal properties of the three systems analyzed here support such a scenario.

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