The Motion of Water Masers in the Pre-Planetary Nebula IRAS 16342-3814

Abstract

We present high angular resolution observations, using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) of the NRAO, of the high-velocity water masers toward the "water-fountain" pre-planetary nebula, IRAS 16342-3814. The detailed structure of the water masers appears to be that of bow shocks on either side of a highly collimated jet. The proper motions of the water masers are approximately equal to the radial velocities; the three-dimensional velocities are approximately +/-180 km/s, which leads to a very short dynamical time-scale of ~100 years. Although we do not find direct evidence for precession of the fast collimated jet, there may be indirect evidence for such precession.

Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (5)

• Preplanetary Nebulae: An HST Imaging Survey and a New Morphological Classification System
• H2O Maser Observations of Candidate Post-AGB Stars and Discovery of Three High-velocity Water Sources
• The spatio-kinematical structure and distance of the pre-planetary nebula IRAS 19134+2131
• New detections of H2O masers in planetary nebulae and post-AGB stars using the Robledo-70m antenna
• Identification of Very Red Counterparts of SiO Maser and OH/IR Objects in the GLIMPSE Survey

Cited by in corpus (4)

• ALMA Observations of the Water Fountain Pre-Planetary Nebula IRAS 16342-3814: High-velocity bipolar jets and an Expanding Torus
• FLASHING: New high-velocity H${}_2$O masers in IRAS 18286$-$0959
• Maser emission during post-AGB evolution
• Early Science with the Large Millimetre Telescope: Molecules in the Extreme Outflow of a proto-Planetary Nebula