Herschel PACS and SPIRE imaging of CW Leo

Abstract

Herschel PACS and SPIRE images have been obtained over a 30'x30' area around the well-known carbon star CW Leo (IRC +10 216). An extended structure is found in an incomplete arc of ~22' diameter, which is cospatial with the termination shock due to interaction with the interstellar medium (ISM) as defined by Sahai & Chronopoulos from ultraviolet GALEX images. Fluxes are derived in the 70, 160, 250, 350, and 550 um bands in the region where the interaction with the ISM takes place, and this can be fitted with a modified black body with a temperature of 25+-3 K. Using the published proper motion and radial velocity for the star, we derive a heliocentric space motion of 25.1 km/s. Using the PACS and SPIRE data and the analytical formula of the bow shock structure, we infer a de-projected standoff distance of the bow shock of R0 = (8.0+-0.3)x10^17 cm. We also derive a relative velocity of the star with respect to the ISM of (106.6+-8.7)/sqrt(n_ISM) km/s, where n_ISM is the number density of the local ISM.

Letter accepted for the Herschel A&A special issue

References in corpus (12)

• Herschel Space Observatory - An ESA facility for far-infrared and submillimetre astronomy
• The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) on the Herschel Space Observatory
• The Herschel-SPIRE instrument and its in-flight performance
• In-flight calibration of the Herschel-SPIRE instrument
• The interaction of planetary nebulae and their AGB progenitors with the interstellar medium
• The circumstellar envelope of IRC+10216 from milli-arcsecond to arcmin scales
• The Astrosphere of the Asymptotic Giant Branch Star Irc+10216
• It's a wonderful tail: the mass loss history of Mira
• Detached shells as tracers of AGB-ISM bow shocks
• The detached dust shells of AQ And, U Ant, and TT Cyg
• Herschel images of NGC 6720: H2 formation on dust grains
• Radio continuum monitoring of the extreme carbon star IRC+10216

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