Dust Extinction in Compact Planetary Nebulae

Abstract

The effects of dust extinction on the departure from axi-symmetry in the morphology of planetary nebulae (PNs) are investigated through a comparison of the radio free-free emission and hydrogen recombination line images. The dust exctinction maps of five compact PNs are derived using high-resolution (~ 0".1) H-alpha and radio images maps of the HST and VLA. These extinction maps are then analyzed by an ellipsoidal shell ionization model including the effects of dust extinction to infer the nebulae's intrinsic structure and orientation in the sky. This method provides a quantitative analysis of the morphological structure of PNs and represents a step beyond qualitative classification of morphological types of PNs.

39 pages, including 21 figure pages and 1 table page; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; figure quality reduced; full resolution copy available at http://www.noao.edu/staff/thlee/cv/thlee05.pdf.gz

References in corpus (5)

• Departure from Axisymmetry in Planetary Nebulae
• The Angular Expansion and Distance of the Planetary Nebula BD+30 3639
• On the Asymmetries of Extended X-ray Emission from Planetary Nebulae
• The inner nebula and central binary of the symbiotic star HM Sge
• Classification of Planetary Nebulae by their Departure from Axisymmetry

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The X-Ray Spectrum of a Planetary Nebula at High Resolution: Chandra Gratings Spectroscopy of BD+30 3639
• The physical structure of the point-symmetric and quadrupolar planetary nebula NGC 6309
• Discovery of a planetary nebula surrounding the symbiotic star DT Serpentis
• IC 4406: a radio-infrared view
• Physical Conditions and Chemical Abundances of the Variable Planetary Nebula IC 4997