Publications (51)
Morphology and Evolution of Galactic and Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae
Letizia Stanghellini
Planetary nebulae (PNe) exist in a range of different morphologies, from very simple and symmetric round shells, to elliptical, bipolar, and even quadrupolar shapes. They present e…
Astro2020 Science White Paper: Radial Metallicity Gradients in Star-Forming Galaxies
Letizia Stanghellini, Danielle Berg, Fabio Bresolin +2
Spiral star-forming galaxies are complex astrophysical objects whose baryonic component is dominated by the disk, where most of the star formation resides. The metallicity in the d…
The population of planetary nebulae and HII regions in M81. A study of radial metallicity gradients and chemical evolution
Letizia Stanghellini, Laura Magrini, Eva Villaver +1
We analyze the chemical abundances of planetary nebulae and HII regions in the M81 disk for insight on galactic evolution, and compare it with that of other galaxies, including the…
Post-AGB Evolution in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A Study of the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae
Eva Villaver, Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw
We present medium- and broad-band Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry of a sample of 35 central stars (CSs) of Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The…
The Mass Distribution of the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Eva Villaver, Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw
We present the properties of the central stars from a sample of 54 Planetary Nebulae (PNe) observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spec…
Precision Analysis of Evolved Stars
Stephen Ridgway, Rachel Akeson, Ellyn Baines +20
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illu…
Merging of Elliptical Galaxies as Possible Origin of the Intergalactic Stellar Population
Letizia Stanghellini, A. Cesar Gonzalez-Garcia, Arturo Manchado
We present N-body simulations of elliptical galaxy encounters into dry mergers to study the resulting unbound intergalactic stellar population, in particular that of the post-Main…
Planetary Nebulae as Probes of Stellar Evolution and Populations
Letizia Stanghellini
Planetary Nebulae (PNe) have been used satisfactory to test the effects of stellar evolution on the Galactic chemical environment. Moreover, a link exists between nebular morpholog…
The Gaia Data Release 1 parallaxes and the distance scale of Galactic planetary nebulae
Letizia Stanghellini, Beatrice Bucciarelli, Mario G. Lattanzi +1
In this paper we gauge the potentiality of Gaia in the distance scale calibration of planetary nebulae (PNe) by assessing the impact of DR1 parallaxes of central stars of Galactic…
Compact Planetary Nebulae in the Galactic Disk: Analysis of the Central Stars
Manuel Moreno-Ibáñez, Eva Villaver, Richard A. Shaw +1
We have obtained multi-wavelength observations of compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) to probe post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) evolution from the onset of nebular ejection.…
The planetary nebula population of M33 and its metallicity gradient: A look into the galaxy's distant past
Laura Magrini, Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver
The Planetary Nebula (PN) population of M33 is studied via multi-fiber spectroscopy with Hectospec at the MMT. In this paper we present the spectra of 102 PNe, whereas plasma diagn…
US National Gemini Office in the NOIRLab era
Vinicius M. Placco, Letizia Stanghellini
This article presents an overview of the US National Gemini Office (US NGO) and its role within the International Gemini Observatory user community. Throughout the years, the US NG…
Asymptotic giant branch evolution and its impact on the chemical evolution of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds
Letizia Stanghellini
The asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase of stellar evolution is common to most stars of low and intermediate mass. Most of the carbon and nitrogen in the Universe is produced by AG…
A Detailed Look at Chemical Abundances in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae. I. The Small Magellanic Cloud
Richard A. Shaw, Ting-Hui Lee, Letizia Stanghellini +8
We present an analysis of elemental abundances of He, N, O, Ne, S, and Ar in Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae (PNe), and focus initially on 14 PNe in the Small Magellanic Cloud (…
Compact Galactic Planetary Nebulae: A HST/WFC3 Morphological Catalog, and a Study of their Role in the Galaxy
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Eva Villaver
We present the images of a \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} (\textit{HST}/WFC3) snapshot program of angularly compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), acquired with the aim of stud…
Hubble Space Telescope observations of three very young star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver, Richard A. Shaw +1
We present Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) broad band imagery and optical slitless spectroscopy of three young star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). MA 179…
Abundances of planetary nebulae and evolved stars: Iron and sulfur depletion, and carbon and nitrogen enrichment, in low- and intermediate-mass stellar populations in the Milky Way
Letizia Stanghellini, Verne V. Smith, Katia Cunha +1
We explore the elemental abundances in Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) compared with those of their stellar progenitors (Red Giant Branch and Asymptotic Giant Branch, RGB and AGB,…
Clues on post-Asymptotic Giant Branch Evolution and Planetary Nebulae Populations from the Magellanic Clouds
Letizia Stanghellini
The recent HST optical images, and the optical and ultraviolet spectra, of Magellanic planetary nebulae (PNe), together with the large data-base that has been collected in the past…
Morphology and Evolution of LMC Planetary Nebulae
Richard A. Shaw, Letizia Stanghellini, Max Mutchler +2
The LMC is ideal for studying the co-evolution of planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars, in that the debilitating uncertainties of the Galactic PN distance scale and sele…
Hubble Space Telescope Images of Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae
Richard A. Shaw, Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver +1
We present images and slitless spectra which were obtained in HST surveys of Planetary Nebulae (PNe) in both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, using the Space Telescope Imagin…
GTC Spectroscopic Surveys of Planetary Nebulae in the Milky Way and M31
Xuan Fang, Haomiao Huang, Martin A. Guerrero +4
We report spectroscopic surveys of planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Milky Way and Andromeda (M31), using the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The spectra are of high quality an…
The messy death of a multiple star system and the resulting planetary nebula as observed by JWST
Orsola De Marco, Muhammad Akashi, Stavros Akras +66
Planetary nebulae (PNe), the ejected envelopes of red giant stars, provide us with a history of the last, mass-losing phases of 90 percent of stars initially more massive than the…
SDSS IV MaNGA - Spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams: A proof that many galaxies are LIERs
Francesco Belfiore, Roberto Maiolino, Claudia Maraston +17
We study the spatially resolved excitation properties of the ionised gas in a sample of 646 galaxies using integral field spectroscopy data from SDSS-IV MaNGA. Making use of Baldwi…
Extragalactic Planetary Nebulae: tracers of the chemical evolution of nearby galaxies
Laura Magrini, Letizia Stanghellini, Denise R. Goncalves
The study of the chemical composition of Planetary Nebulae in external galaxies is of paramount importance in the fields of stellar evolution and of the chemical enrichment history…
The role of the US National Office in the Gemini partnership
Kenneth H. Hinkle, Letizia Stanghellini, Dara Norman +1
We follow the history of the US National Gemini Office from its origin when the US National New Technology Telescope was reshaped into two 8m telescopes for the International Gemin…
Slitless Spectroscopy of LMC Planetary Nebulae. A Study of the Emission Lines and Morphology
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Max Mutchler +3
HST STIS slitless spectroscopy of LMC PNs is the ideal tool to study their morphology and their ionization structures at once. We present the results from a group of 29 PNs that ha…
Planetary Nebulae of the Large Magellanic Cloud I: A multiwavelength analysis
Silvia Tosi, Flavia Dell'Agli, Devika Kamath +5
Planetary nebulae (PNe) have three main components: a central star (CS), ionised gas and dust in the nebula. Each of them contains critical chemical fingerprints of their evolution…
The Correlations between Planetary Nebula Morphology and Central Star Evolution. Analysis of the Northern Galactic Sample
Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver, Arturo Manchado +1
Northern Galactic Planetary nebulae (PNs) are studied to disclose possible correlations between the morphology of the nebulae and the evolution of the central stars (CSs). To this…
Carbon Abundances in Compact Galactic Planetary Nebulae: An Ultraviolet spectroscopic study with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS)
Letizia Stanghellini, Rafia Bushra, Richard A. Shaw +3
We surveyed a sample of compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST/STIS) to determine their gas-phase…
Planetary nebulae as probes of the chemical impact of AGB stars
Letizia Stanghellini
Planetary nebulae (PN) represent the evolutionary fate of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stellar envelopes, thus are ideally suited to study the chemical impact of AGB stars. St…
The population of Galactic planetary nebulae: a study of distance scales and central stars based on the second GAIA release
Letizia Stanghellini, Beatrice Bucciarelli, Mario G. Lattanzi +1
We matched the astrometry of central stars (CSs) of spectroscopically-confirmed Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) with DR2 Gaia parallaxes (), finding 430 targets in common with…
The population of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae
Letizia Stanghellini
In this review we address the progress that has been made toward the understanding the population of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae since the last Magellanic Cloud Symposium. P…
Galactic planetary nebulae as probes of radial metallicity gradients and other abundance patterns
Letizia Stanghellini, Misha Haywood
We use planetary nebulae (PNe) as probes to determine the Galactic radial oxygen gradients, and other abundance patterns. We select data homogeneously from recent data sets, includ…
The Low- and Intermediate-Mass Stellar Population in the Small Magellanic Cloud: The Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae
Eva Villaver, Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw
We present a study on the central stars (CSs) of Planetary Nebulae (PNe) observed in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph instrument on-bo…
High resolution imaging of NGC 2346 with GSAOI/GeMS: disentangling the planetary nebula molecular structure to understand its origin and evolution
Arturo Manchado, Letizia Stanghellini, Eva Villaver +3
We present high spatial resolution ( 60--90 milliarcseconds) images of the molecular hydrogen emission in the Planetary Nebula (PN) NGC 2346. The data were acquired during…
The Magellanic Cloud Calibration of the Galactic Planetary Nebula Distance Scale
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Eva Villaver
Galactic planetary nebula (PN) distances are derived, except in a small number of cases, through the calibration of statistical properties of PNe. Such calibrations are limited by…
Modernizing IRAF to Support Gemini Data Reduction
Michael Fitzpatrick, Vinicius Placco, Adam Bolton +3
The US National Gemini Office (US NGO), part of the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) at NSF's NOIRLab, has completed a project to upgrade the IRAF-based Gemini reduction so…
GTC/OSIRIS Deep Spectroscopy of Galactic Compact Planetary Nebulae: PNG048.5+04.2 and PNG068.7+14.8
Haomiao Huang, Xuan Fang, Letizia Stanghellini +5
We report deep long-slit spectroscopy of two Galactic compact planetary nebulae (PNe), PNG048.5+04.2 and PNG068.7+14.8, obtained using the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The…
Synthetic post-Asymptotic Giant Branch evolution: basic models and applications to disk populations
Letizia Stanghellini, Alvio Renzini
We explore the realm of post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (post-AGB) stars from a theoretical viewpoint, by constructing synthetic population of transition objects, proto-Planetary Nebu…
The radial metallicity gradient and the history of elemental enrichment in M81 through emission-line probes
Letizia Stanghellini, Laura Magrini, Viviana Casasola +1
We present a new set of weak-line abundances of HII regions in M81, based on Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) observations. The aim is to derive plasma and abundance analysi…
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph slitless observations of Small Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae: a study on morphology, emission line intensity, and evolution
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Bruce Balick +3
A sample of 27 Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) to determine their mo…
Revealing the Nature of Asymmetric Planetary Nebulae through Abundance Analysis
Letizia Stanghellini
The correlations between planetary nebula (PN) morphology and the nature of their progenitors are explored by examining homogeneous PN samples in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clou…
Metal production in M33: space and time variations
Laura Magrini, Letizia Stanghellini, Edvige Corbelli +2
Nearby galaxies are ideal places to study in detail metallicity gradients and their time evolution. We consider chemical abundances of a new sample of \hii\ regions complemented wi…
Gas-phase oxygen abundances and radial metallicity gradients in the two nearby spiral galaxies NGC7793 and NGC4945
Letizia Stanghellini, Laura Magrini, Viviana Casasola
Gas-phase abundances in HII regions of two spiral galaxies, NGC7793 and NGC4945, have been studied to determine their radial metallicity gradients. We used the strong-line method t…
Magellanic Clouds Planetary Nebulae: an updated view on stellar evolution and populations
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Max Mutchler
Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Magellanic Clouds are studied to understand stellar populations and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars in different chemical environments.…
Tests of the Galactic planetary nebula distance scale with the initial Gaia parallax distances of their central stars
Letizia Stanghellini, Beatrice Bucciarelli, Mario G. Lattanzi +1
We used the "primary dataset" of Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) to search for parallax measurements of central stars (CSs) of Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), to determine PN distances…
The Survival of Planetary Nebulae in the Intracluster Medium
Eva Villaver, Letizia Stanghellini
The stellar population stripped from galaxies in clusters evolve under the extreme conditions imposed by the intracluster (IC) medium. Intracluster stars generally suffer very high…
Large Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebula Morphology: Probing Stellar Populations and Evolution
Letizia Stanghellini, Richard A. Shaw, Bruce Balick +1
Planetary Nebulae (PNe) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) offer the unique opportunity to study both the Population and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, by means of…
Magellanic Cloud PNs as probes of stellar evolution and populations
Letizia Stanghellini
Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae (PNs) offer insight of both the population and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, in environments that are free of the distance bias…
Planetary Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds: Probing Stellar Evolution and Populations
Letizia Stanghellini
This review contains: (1) the scientific motivations for studying Planetary Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds; (2) a review of this field of study, from the origins to the most rece…
Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae as probes of stellar evolution and populations
Letizia Stanghellini
Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Magellanic Clouds offer the unique opportunity to study both the population and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, in an environment that…