Bibcode
DOI
Vassiliadis, E.
Referencia bibliográfica
Astrophysical Journal v.465, p.748
Fecha de publicación:
7
1996
Número de citas
11
Número de citas referidas
9
Descripción
LMC-SMP83 is a planetary nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud whose
central star is recently reported by Pena et al. to show decreases in
temperature and luminosity of at least 50% over a time span of seven
years. Serendipitously, this object is observed with the Planetary and
Faint Object Cameras onboard the Hubble Space Telescope between 1991
July and 1994 February. The Planetary Camera F502 N filter is
sufficiently narrow to isolate the [O III] λ5007 nebular emission
line, but the Faint Object Camera F501N filter is wide enough to include
some contamination by the [O III] λ4959 line. The HST images
confirm the nebular flux to be constant. The stellar fluxes are in
agreement with previously published ground-based measurements, showing
an exponential increase in flux with time. A published, low core-mass
stellar evolutionary track is scaled to depict the evolution of a 1.0
M_sun_ central star, which is the published core mass for LMC-SMP83.
Assuming the central star has suffered a late He shell flash, the rate
of increase in the observed flux is slower than that predicted from
theory, suggesting the central star of LMC-SMP83 is less than 1.0
M_sun_. However, before revising the mass of the central star, a
self-consistent calculation of a 1.0 M_sun_ track is necessary.