Shocks in protoplanetary nebulae

Details Shocks in protoplanetary nebulae Shocks in protoplanetary nebulae

Jul 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996hst..prop.6533b&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #6533

Physics

Hst Proposal Id #6533 Interstellar Medium

Scientific paper

It is thought that wind interaction between the AGB and post- AGB winds is the dominant dynamical effect in the evolution of protoplanetary nebulae {PPNe} and the planetary nebula shaping. Under this framework, a diffuse and fast bipolar outflow, ejected by the post-AGB star, impinges with a strong effect on the the slow but dense AGB shells. Shocked gas has been observationally identified in PPNe. Molecular mm-wave emission has been shown to probe the low-energy material after the shock acceleration, and optical line emission has been used to study the high-energy shocked gas in these objects. Excitation characteristics are found which are similar to those of interstellar Herbig-Haro objects. However, the spatial resolution of existing data, worse than 1", is insufficient to resolve the energetic shock features {bow shock and countershocks}, the study of which needs a spatial resolution as high as 0.1". As a result, the location and structure of the shock fronts remain practically unknown {in contrast to the case of interstellar shocks}, which is a basic handicap for our understanding of the protoplanetary evolution. We propose to perform observations of atomic line emission in four well studied PPNe, using the WFPC2 and a set of five spectral filters in the visible. The exceptional quality of the refurbished HST imagery will yield a spectacular advance in this field.

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