What Mass Loss Modeling Tells Us About Planetary Nebulae (Abstract)

Volume 40 number 1 (2012)

Lee Anne Willson

Iowa State University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ames, IA 50011; lwillson@iastate.edu

Qian Wang

Iowa State University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ames, IA 50011; lwillson@iastate.edu

Abstract

(Abstract only) Planetary nebulae are the result of mass loss from an AGB star (specifically, a Mira variable or post-Mira infrared source) that is swept up by a later fast wind and/or ionized when the central star becomes hot. The central stars of planetary nebulae are the naked cores of the former AGB star. Not all AGB stars form PNe, however, and the ones that do may be mostly binary star systems. Using both a large grid of detailed mass loss models and some simple analytical mass loss formulae we can relate observations of PNe and their nuclei to the character of the late AGB (Mira stage) mass loss.