H${}_2$O maser emission associated with the planetary nebula IRAS 16333$-$4807

Abstract

We present simultaneous observations of H${}_2$O maser emission and radio continuum at 1.3 cm carried out with the Australia Telescope Compact Array towards two sources, IRAS 16333$-$4807 and IRAS 12405$-$6219, catalogued as planetary nebula (PN) candidates, and where single-dish detections of H${}_2$O masers have been previously reported. Our goal was to unambiguously confirm the spatial association of the H${}_2$O masers with these two PN candidates. We detected and mapped H${}_2$O maser emission in both fields, but only in IRAS 16333$-$4807 the maser emission is spatially associated with the radio continuum emission. The properties of IRAS 16333$-$4807 provide strong support for the PN nature of the object, hereby confirming it as the fifth known case of a H${}_2$O maser-emitting PN. This source is bipolar, like the other four known H${}_2$O maser-emitting PNe, indicating that these sources might pertain to a usual, but short phase in the evolution of bipolar PNe. In IRAS 12405$-$6219, the H${}_2$O maser and radio continuum emission are not associated with each other and, in addition, the available data indicate that this source is an H II region rather than a PN.

6 pages, 3 figures. Accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• A spectroscopic atlas of post-AGB stars and planetary nebulae selected from the IRAS Point Source Catalogue
• New detections of H2O masers in planetary nebulae and post-AGB stars using the Robledo-70m antenna
• Kinematics of the H2O masers at the centre of the PN K3-35
• Radio interferometric observations of candidate water-maser-emitting planetary nebulae
• A precessing jet model for the PN K 3-35: simulated radio-continuum emission

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• Searching for nascent planetary nebulae: OHPNe candidates in the SPLASH survey
• Fallback in bipolar Planetary Nebulae ?