The Shells of R Coronae Borealis Stars: Fossil Planetary Nebulae?

Details The Shells of R Coronae Borealis Stars: Fossil Planetary Nebulae? The Shells of R Coronae Borealis Stars: Fossil Planetary Nebulae?

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006sptz.prop30029c&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #30029

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Scientific paper

IRAS observations detected extended arcminute-size shells around five R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars but due to its poor spatial resolution no detailed maps of these shells exist. R CrB, itself, has an 18' shell at 100 microns. Twenty years later, this shell is still unexplained. But the shell around R CrB and other RCB stars hold clues to the evolutionary history of these stars. The RCB stars are rare hydrogen-deficient and carbon-rich supergiants. Their rarity may stem either from them being in an extremely rapid phase of evolution, or from them being in an evolutionary phase that most stars are able to avoid. Two contending evolutionary scenarios have been suggested to account for RCB stars: they arise from a merger of two white dwarfs, or from a single star which has evolved to become a planetary-nebula central star and only then undergoes a final helium shell flash which returns it to a cool supergiant configuration. The proposed MIPS maps will provide images of the RCB IRAS shells, which are fossil records of previous evolutionary stages of these stars. For instance, an old Planetary Nebula shell would no longer be ionized and is now seen in IR emission from dust. Understanding the RCB stars is a key test of for any theory which aims to explain the evolution of post AGB stars and hydrogen deficiency.

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