paper

FAST search for circumstellar atomic hydrogen. II. Is BD+303639 an interacting planetary nebula?

arXiv:2305.13598 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/acd761

Abstract

The young, compact, very high surface brightness but low excitation planetary nebula (PN) BD+303639 is one of the very few PNe that have been reported to exhibit the 21cm HI emission line. As part of a long-term programme to search for circumstellar atomic hydrogen, we observed the 21cm feature toward BD+303639 with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Assuming a direct association between the PN and the detected HI emission, these new observations show that this surrounding emission is significantly more spatially extended than indicated by previous interferometric observations, and can be resolved into two velocity components. The estimated HI mass is larger than 100M_sun, invalidating an origin from the host star itself or its ejecta for the emitting material. We discuss the possibility that the extended HI emission stems from the interstellar medium (ISM) swept out over time by the stellar wind. Moreover, we report tentative detections of HI absorption features lying near and blueward of the systemic velocity of this PN, which are probably from a stalled asterosphere at the outer boundary of the expanding ionized region. The mass of the gas producing the HI absorption is insufficient to solve the so-called `PN missing mass problem'. We demonstrate the capability of FAST to investigate the interaction process between a PN and the surrounding ISM.

arXiv comment20 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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