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Unravelling the chemical inhomogeneity of PNe with VLT FLAMES integral-field unit spectroscopy

Y. G. Tsamis·J. R. Walsh·D. Pequignot·M. J. Barlow·X. -W. Liu·I. J. Danziger
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Abstract

Recent weak emission-line long-slit surveys and modelling studies of PNe have convincingly argued in favour of the existence of an unknown component in the planetary nebula plasma consisting of cold, hydrogen-deficient gas, as an explanation for the long-standing recombination-line versus forbidden-line temperature and abundance discrepancy problems. Here we describe the rationale and initial results from a detailed spectroscopic study of three Galactic PNe undertaken with the VLT FLAMES integral-field unit spectrograph, which advances our knowledge about the small-scale physical properties, chemical abundances and velocity structure of these objects across a two-dimensional field of view, and opens up for exploration an uncharted territory in the study and modelling of PNe and photoionized nebulae in general.

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Y. G. Tsamis, J. R. Walsh, D. Pequignot, M. J. Barlow, X. -W. Liu, I. J. Danziger. 2006-05-07. Unravelling the chemical inhomogeneity of PNe with VLT FLAMES integral-field unit spectroscopy. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743921306003036

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