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Albert A. Zijlstra

Publications and source records attributed to Albert A. Zijlstra.

112 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Stellar Evolution and Mass Loss on the Asymptotic Giant Branch

Mass loss dominates the stellar evolution on the Asymptotic Giant Branch. The phase of highest mass-loss occurs during the last 1--10\% of the AGB and includes the so-called Miras and OH/IR stars. In this review I will discuss the characteristics and evolution of especially Miras, and discuss how they are linked to the mass loss. There are indications that high mass-loss rates are only reached for relatively young stars with massive progenitors. The mass loss rates vary both on long and short time scales: the short-term variations are likely linked to luminosity variations associated with the thermal-pulse cycle. The influence of mass loss in the post-AGB phase is also discussed.

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Radio and Infrared Emission from a [WC]-Type Planetary Nebula in the LMC

Radio continuum emission has been detected from a planetary nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud: this is the first radio continuum detection for any planetary nebula outside our galaxy. The radio flux density is a factor of two lower than predicted from the \hbeta\ flux. This could be due either to a two-component morphology or to a stellar contribution to the \hbeta\ emission. We have modeled the optical and infrared spectrum using the photo-ionisation code Cloudy: a very good fit is obtained if we assume the nebula is carbon rich. The derived diameter implies an evolutionary age of the nebula of $<1000\yr$, similar to what is derived from the IRAS colours alone. The central star, which is of [WC] type, has a much higher stellar temperature than Galactic [WC] stars showing similar circumstellar IRAS colours. An explanation could be that the expansion velocity of the nebula is lower than those of its galactic counterparts. This radio detection indicates that accurate nebular luminosities could be determined from their radio emission for many LMC planetary nebulae.

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Angular Diameters of Compact Planetary Nebulae

We have obtained H$α$ CCD images of 21 compact planetary nebulae in the galactic bulge. All objects are resolved and, after deconvolving the seeing disk, we find diameters of 1--2$''$ with typical uncertainties of 20\%. The values are generally in good agreement with radio measurements but are smaller than older optical measurements. Based on the new values, we find that the Shklovsky method for distance determination greatly overestimates the actual distance for all of our objects.

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The Past and Present Infrared Spectrum of BD+30 3639

We present a radiative-transfer calculation which reproduces the infrared spectrum of the planetary nebula BD+30$^{\circ}$3639, fitting both the spectral energy distribution and the spatial extent at infrared wavelengths. We obtain an acceptable fit to most of the spectrum, including the infrared bands. The fit requires a distance of $\ge 2 \kpc$, which implies that BD+30$^\circ$3639 has evolved from a massive progenitor of several solar masses. Two surprising results are (1) a very low dust-to-gas ratio, (2) an absence of the smallest PAH molecules. Extrapolating back in time, we calculate the previous infrared evolution of BD+30$^\circ$3639.

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