Bibcode
Leone, Francesco; Martínez-González, M. J.; Corradi, R. L. M.; Privitera, Giovanni; Manso-Sainz, R.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 731, Issue 2, article id. L33 (2011).
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4
2011
Citations
38
Refereed citations
26
Description
The presence of magnetic fields is an attractive hypothesis for shaping
planetary nebulae (PNe). We report on observations of the central star
of the two PNe NGC 1360 and LSS 1326. We performed spectroscopy on
circularly polarized light with the Focal Reducer and Low Dispersion
Spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern
Observatory. Contrary to previous reports, we find that the effective
magnetic field, which is the average over the visible stellar disk of
longitudinal components of the magnetic fields, is null within errors
for both stars. We conclude that direct evidence of magnetic fields on
the central stars of PNe is still missing—either the magnetic
field is much weaker (<600 G) than previously reported, or more
complex (thus leading to cancellations), or both. Certainly, indirect
evidence (e.g., MASER emission) fully justify further efforts to point
out the strength and morphology of such magnetic fields.
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