3D spatio-kinematic modeling of Abell 48, a planetary nebula around a Wolf-Rayet [WN] star

Abstract

The planetary nebula (PN) Abell 48 (PN G029.0+00.4) is around a rare Wolf-Rayet [WN5] star whose stellar history is as yet unknown. Using the integral field observations of the H$\alpha$ $\lambda$6563 and [N II] $\lambda$6584 line emissions, we conducted a comprehensive spatio-kinematic analysis of this PN. A three-dimensional spatio-kinematic ionization model was developed with the kinematic modeling tool SHAPE to replicate the observed spatially-resolved velocity channels and position--velocity diagrams. According to our kinematic analysis of the H$\alpha$ emission, this object possesses a deformed elliptic toroidal shell with an outer radius of 23 arcsec and a thickness of 15 arcsec associated with an integrated H$\alpha$ emission-line expansion of $\sim 35\pm 5$ km s${}^{-1}$, a maximum poloidal expansion of around $70\pm 20$ km s${}^{-1}$ at an inclination angle of $\sim 30^{\circ }$ with respect to the line of sight, and a position angle of $\sim 130^{\circ }$ measured from east toward north in the equatorial coordinate system. Furthermore, [N II] kinematic modeling reveals the presence of narrow ($\sim 3$ arcsec) exterior low-ionization structures surrounding the main elliptical shell, which could have formed as a result of shock collisions with the interstellar medium. The torus-shaped morphology of this PN could be related to its unusual hydrogen-deficient [WN] nucleus that needs to be inspected further.

7 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, accepted by MNRAS, interactive 3D model available on https://skfb.ly/o7nxA and https://astroneb.github.io/Abell48_Kinematic_Model/figure5/ archived on https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5511247

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