The population of planetary nebulae near the Galactic centre: chemical abundances

Abstract

Planetary nebulae (PNe) constitute an important tool to study the chemical evolution of the Milky Way and other galaxies, probing the nucleosynthesis processes, abundance gradients and the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium. In particular, Galactic bulge PNe (GBPNe) have been extensively used in the literature to study the chemical properties of this Galactic structure. However, the presently available GBPNe chemical composition studies are strongly biased, since they were focused on brighter objects, predominantly located in Galactic regions of low interstellar reddening. In this work, we report physical parameters and abundances derived for a sample of 17 high extinction PNe located in the inner 2\degr of the Galactic bulge, based on low dispersion spectroscopy secured at the SOAR telescope using the Goodman spectrograph. The new data allow us to extend our database including faint objects, providing chemical compositions for PNe located in this region of the bulge and an estimation for the masses of their progenitors to explore the chemical enrichment history of the central region of the Galactic bulge. The results show that there is an enhancement in the N/O abundance ratio in the Galactic centre PNe compared with PNe located in the outer regions of the Galactic bulge. This may indicate recent episodes of star formation occurring near the Galactic centre.

23 pages, 15 figures and 9 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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• Nitrogen evolution in the halo, thick disc, thin disc and bulge of the Galaxy
• Low-ionization structures in planetary nebulae -- III. The statistical analysis of physico-chemical parameters and excitation mechanisms
• Planetary Nebulae and How to Find Them: Color Identification in Big Broadband Surveys