Pre-planetary nebulae: a context for principles, progress, and questions on how binaries and magnetic fields produce jets

Abstract

Astrophysical outflows treated initially as spherically symmetric often show evidence for asymmetry once seen at higher resolution. The preponderance of aspherical and multipolar planetary nebulae (PN) and pre-planetary nebulae (PPN) was evident after many observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Binary interactions have long been thought to be essential for shaping asymmetric PN/PPN, but how? PPN are the more kinematically demanding of the two, and warrant particular focus. I address how progress from observation and theory suggests two broad classes of accretion driven PPN jets: one for wider binaries (PPN-W) where the companion is outside the outer radius of the giant and accretes via Roche lobe overflow, and the other which occurs in the later stages of common envelope evolution (CEE) for close binaries (PPN-C). The physics within these scenarios connects to progress and open questions about the role and origin of magnetic fields in the engines and in astrophysical jets more generally.

20 Pages, 4 figures; review published in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium 366: "The Origin of Outflows in Evolved Stars"; L. Decin, A.A. Zÿlstra and C. Gielen, editors; this version updated post-publication to include Corrigendum: minor typos to equations 2.1, 2.3, and 2.7 have been corrected herein