On the mass distribution of planetary nebulae central stars.
Stasinska G., Gorny S.K. & Tylenda R.
1996, A&A 327, 736
Abstract:
-
We apply a method, described in Gorny et al.
(1997), to derive the masses of 125 central stars of planetary nebulae
(PN). This method is self-consistent and distance-independent. It requires
the knowledge of the nebular H
fluxes, angular
radii and expansion velocities, as well as the stellar visual magnitudes.
This method is based on a simple model for the evolution of planetary
nebulae, in which the central stars evolve according to the theoretical
models of Blöcker (1995) and Schönberner (1983). The results are dependent
on the assumed total nebular mass. Nevertheless, for any reasonable
total nebular mass distribution, we find that the range in planetary
nebulae central star masses is very restricted: more than 80% of the
objects have a central star mass between 0.55 and 0.65M
. We show how to convert, in this mass range, the observed
PN central star mass distribution into a zero-age post-AGB star mass
distribution.
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