Bibcode
DOI
Stanghellini, Letizia; Villaver, Eva; Manchado, A.; Guerrero, Martin A.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 576, Issue 1, pp. 285-293.
Advertised on:
9
2002
Journal
Citations
64
Refereed citations
51
Description
Northern Galactic planetary nebulae (PNs) are studied to disclose
possible correlations between the morphology of the nebulae and the
evolution of the central stars (CSs). To this end, we have built the
best database available to date, accounting for homogeneity and
completeness. We use updated statistical distances and an updated
morphological classification scheme, and we calculate Zanstra
temperatures for a large sample of PNs. With our study we confirm that
round, elliptical, and bipolar PNs have different spatial distributions
within the Galaxy, with average absolute distances to the Galactic plane
of 0.73, 0.38, and 0.21 kpc, respectively. We also find evidence that
the distributions of the CS masses are different across these
morphological groups, although we do not find that CSs hosted by bipolar
PNs are hotter, on average, than CSs within round and elliptical PNs.
Our results are in broad agreement with previous analyses, indicating
that round, elliptical, and bipolar PNs evolve from progenitors in
different mass ranges and might belong to different stellar populations,
as also indicated by the helium and nitrogen abundances of PNs of
different morphology.