A&A 462, 179-192 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20066012
S. R. Pottasch1 - R. Surendiranath2
1 - Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, PO Box 800, NL 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
2 -
Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Koramangala II Block,
Bangalore-560034, India
Received 11 July 2006 / Accepted 18 October 2006
Abstract
The ISO spectra of the bilobal planetary
nebula Hb 5 are presented. These spectra are combined
with the spectra in the visual wavelength region to obtain a
complete, extinction corrected, spectrum. The chemical composition
of the nebula is then calculated in several ways. First by directly
calculating and adding individual ion abundances, assuming that all the ionic
lines are formed in an ionized region surrounding the ionizing star. Secondly
by building an "end-to-end model'' nebula in which we have included a
neutral region and a photodissociation region (PDR) beyond the ionized nebula.
In this way we attempt to interpret the molecular hydrogen lines observed
by ISO in a more self-consistent way. In the final analysis, the model is
found to be basically heuristic, but gives new insights about the PDR and
the PN. The implications of these are discussed.
Key words: ISM: abundances - planetary nebulae: individual: Hb 5 - stars: evolution - HII regions
Hb 5 (Hubble 5) is a rather large bipolar nebula. An HST image
in visible light is shown as Fig. 1. In many ways the morphology is similar to
that of NGC 6537. Most of its emission is concentrated in a comparatively
small region at the center of the nebula and the lobes extend much further out.
Measurements of Tylenda et al. (2003) give a size of
in H
at the 10% level. However most of the emission comes
from a much smaller region. As will be shown in the discussion of the radio
emission measured by the VLA, most of the emission is coming from a region
not more than 4
in size. The density in this region is quite high. The
nebula is quite bright in radio continuum emission, being among the
brightest PNe in the sky. The central star is faint and cannot be seen on this
image, although it can be measured. As one of the few planetary nebulae
(PNe) showing the Ne VI line, the exciting star is quite hot.
Hb 5 (PK 359.3-00.9) is, as the PK number indicates, located close to the
galactic plane in the direction of the galactic center. As may be expected
from a nebula in this direction, its extinction is very high. Its distance is
uncertain. Statistical distances are between 0.7 kpc and 2 kpc (Acker et al. 1992). They also give an extinction distance of 2 kpc. A distance
is computed by equating the
density with the forbidden line density
(computed below). A value of d=3 kpc to d=7 kpc is found which is
considerably greater than the statistical distance. This is an indication that
the nebula is intrinsically brighter than most PNe and may have evolved from
a star of high mass. It is possible that this may be
seen in the chemical abundances of the nebula.
![]() |
Figure 1:
The HST image of Hb 5. The width of the image is about 60
|
| Open with DEXTER | |
Another important characteristic of this nebula is that the spectrum shows
strong molecular hydrogen (
)
emission. This is found in several
other PNe as well (see e.g. Hora et al. 1999), but in Hb 5 it has a
very strong intensity relative to the hydrogen lines. It is unlikely that
these lines are formed in the same region which produces the high ionization
lines. The simplest possibility is that they are formed in a photodissociation
region (PDR) immediately surrounding the nebula. While other geometries may
be possible, they are more complicated and we do not introduce them here.
It is also very likely that some of the far-IR fine structure lines are formed
in such a region and therefore consideration of a PDR in the analysis is
a necessity.
The basic purpose of this paper is to explain the observed spectrum. This
is done both in order to obtain accurate abundances for this nebula and to
quantitatively explain the presence of the molecular (
)
lines.
This is achieved in two ways. First by including the ISO
spectra. The reasons for this have been discussed in earlier papers
(e.g. see Pottasch & Beintema 1999; Pottasch et al.
2000, 2001; Bernard Salas et al. 2001), and
can be summarized as follows.
The most important advantage is that the infrared lines originate from very low energy levels and thus give an abundance which is not sensitive to the temperature in the nebula, nor to possible temperature fluctuations. Furthermore, when a line originating from a high-lying energy level in the same ion is observed, it is possible to determine an effective temperature at which the lines in that particular ion are formed. When the effective temperature for many ions can be determined, it is possible to make a plot of effective temperature against ionization potential, which can be used to determine the effective temperature for ions for which only lines originating from a high energy level are observed. Use of an effective electron temperature takes into account the fact that ions are formed in different regions of the nebula. At the same time possible temperature fluctuations are taken into account.
Use of the ISO spectra have further advantages. One of them is that the number of observed ions used in the abundance analysis is approximately doubled, which removes the need for using large "Ionization Correction Factors'', thus substantially lowering the uncertainty in the abundance. A further advantage is that the extinction in the infrared is almost negligible, eliminating the need to include large correction factors.
The second method of improving the abundances is by using a nebular model to determine them. This has several advantages. First it provides a physical basis for the electron temperature determination. Secondly it permits abundance determination for elements which are observed in only one, or a limited number of ionic stages. A further advantage of modeling is that it provides information on the central star and other properties of the nebula. We have included dust grains and molecules in the modeling and the computations include a state-of-art model atmosphere of the CSPN, the nebular shell, then a neutral zone and finally the PDR, all in a single model (i.e., an end-to-end model) for the first time.
A disadvantage of modeling is that there are possibly more unknowns than observations and some assumptions must be made. For example, concerning the geometry; we will assume that the nebula is spherical and that no clumping exists. The observed circular form in the radio maps (see Phillips & Mampaso 1988) and smooth emission within this inner region make these assumptions plausible. Other assumptions are discussed in Sect. 4.
This paper is structured as follows. First the spectrum of Hb 5 is
discussed (in Sect. 2). Section 3 discusses the simple approach to
determining the chemical composition and presents the resultant
abundances. In Sect. 4, comparison with other abundance determinations
is done along with a brief discussion on the errors. Section 5 gives a
preliminary estimate of the
of the CSPN. The model is presented
after various relevant aspects about the method, inclusion of the PDR etc.,
are discussed, in Sect. 6. In Sect. 7, a discussion of the results
is presented. Section 7.4 presents the details of the model PDR and discusses
the important insights we derived from it. Section 7.5 looks at the whole
picture emerging from modeling in a critical way, and provides a road map
for the future. Details of the interesting insights obtained from the model
are given in Sect. 8 and the evolutionary state of the CSPN is discussed in
Sect. 9. Finally our conclusions are given in Sect. 10.
Observations were made on Hb 5 by ISO on 24 March 1997. Three observations
were made. A short wavelength SWS01 complete spectral scan lasting 3450 s.
was made centered at RA(2000) 17
47
56.04
and
Dec(2000) -29$^$59
40
,
which is very close to the nebula center,
which is given as RA(2000) 17
47
56.187
and Dec(2000)
-29$^$59
41.91
by Kerber et al. (2003).
It is known as TDT49400104. Because of the length of the exposure many faint
lines are visible. There is also a longwave spectral scan LWS01 (TDT49400105)
at approximately the same position, and a longwave spectrum (TDT49400106) of a
region 168 arcsec distant, which is used as the background spectrum because
it is outside the nebula. Both of the longwave
observations lasted 604 s. The diaphragm used for the shortwave observation
was
below 12
m,
between 12
m and 29
m and
above this wavelength. The entire nebula probably fit within the diaphragm
in the entire wavelength range, and it is possible to check this by comparing
the measured hydrogen line strengths with those expected from the radio
continuum measurements. The diaphragm for the longwave measurements was
considerably larger, about 80
in diameter.
The resultant line strengths are shown in Table 1. The error in the intensities measured for the stronger lines is probably better than 10% while for the fainter lines the uncertainty increases to about 30% for the weakest lines. In the third column of the table (Intens.1) the measured intensities are given while in the fourth column (Intens.2) the measured intensities have been corrected for extinction using the extinction curve given by Fluks et al. (1994). The extinction corrections are usually less than 15%. For most nebulae we have ignored extinction in this spectral region, but this nebula has unusually high extinction.
Table 1: ISO observations of Hb 5 (in units of 10-12 erg cm-2 s-1).
There are several methods for obtaining the extinction: (1) comparison
of radio emission with H
flux, (2) comparison of observed and
theoretical Balmer decrement, (3) dip at
2200 Å, (4) photometry of the exciting star. Only the first two cases are realistic for
Hb 5. First we will discuss the radio emission and the H
flux.
The most reliable measurements of radio emission have been made by Phillips &
Mampaso (1988) using the VLA. The integrated emission at 6 cm
(the
flux density) is 471 mJy. At 2 cm it is 428 mJy which would predict a 6 cm
flux density of 482 mJy. At 21 cm a value of 289 mJy is measured and it is
clearly optically thick at this wavelength. A single dish measurement has also
been made by Milne & Aller (1982) using the Parkes telescope. They
find a flux density at 6 cm of 548 mJy. This is slightly higher than the VLA
measurement but the Parkes telescope has a beam of 4.5
at half power.
Since the measurement is made very close to the galactic plane there could be
substantial contamination. Even so, if we use a value of 482 mJy for the 6 cm
flux density, very little radiation could have been missed. Phillips & Mampaso
give a diameter of about 3 to 3.5
for the half-power size of Hb 5.
Table 2: Hb 5: hydrogen line intensities (in units of 10-12 erg cm-2 s-1).
The H
flux measured by O'Dell, 1963 is
erg cm-2 s-1. Since the radio measurement of 482 mJy predicts a value of
erg cm-2 s-1, the extinction value is C=1.60 at
H
.
This is quite a large extinction and explains why IUE measurements in
the ultraviolet were unsuccessful. It is not so unexpected in the direction
of the galactic center. The extinction in terms of EB-V is 1.09.
This value, together with the extinction curve of Fluks et al. (1994),
will be used throughout this paper. It has already been used to correct the
ISO fluxes given in Table 1.
The H
flux may also be found by combining the hydrogen line intensities
in the ISO measurements with the theoretical hydrogen line intensity ratios
given by Hummer & Storey (1987). The results are shown in Table 2,
where the predicted value of H
is given in the last column. This value
agrees quite well with the value of H
derived from the radio
measurements, which is a confirmation that essentially all the emission is
observed in the ISO diaphragm.
The visual spectrum has been measured by a number of authors. All authors
determine the extinction by trying to obtain the correct Balmer decrement but
all obtain somewhat different extinction values. The most reliable spectra are
those of Exter et al. (2004). In Table 3 we reproduce their results
together with those of Acker et al. (1991) and those of Aller &
Keyes (1987). The intensities shown in the table have been corrected
for extinction by the authors themselves. We use these intensities even though
different extinction corrections have been used (C=1.69, 1.98 and 2.28
respectively) because in each case the correct Balmer decrement is then
produced. This must mean that the flux calibration of each group was
somewhat different, and somewhat incorrect. The use of the authors own
extinction correction will correct at least some of the incorrect flux
calibration. This will be correct in the neighborhood of the Balmer lines but
uncertainties exist in other parts of the spectrum. We give most weight to the
measurements of Exter et al. (2004) since they find a Balmer decrement
extinction which is close to the extinction we find from the radio-H
method. The spectra of the other authors are primarily used for measurements
in the infrared and for weak lines not measured by Exter et al. For the
[Ne V] line at
3425 Å only measurements by Aller & Keyes are
available. Because these authors have probably over corrected for extinction
we use a lower intensity for this line than they give. This indicates the
uncertainty in the intensity of this line.
Table 3:
Visual Spectrum of Hb 5 (Intensities are normalized to H
;
They have been unreddened by each individual observer so as toobtain the
correct Balmer decrement for his/her observations; theextinction used by each is not the same).
The method of analysis is the same as used in the papers cited in the introduction. First the electron density and temperature as function of the ionization potential are determined. Then the ionic abundances are determined, using density and temperature appropriate for the ion under consideration, together with Eq. (1). Then the element abundances are found for those elements in which a sufficient number of ionization stages if not all, have been covered.
Table 4: Electron density indicators in Hb 5.
The ions used to determine
are listed in the first
column of Table 4. The ionization potential required to reach that
ionization stage, and the wavelengths of the lines used, are given in
Cols. 2 and 3 of the table. Note that the wavelength units are
Å when 4 ciphers are given and microns when 3 ciphers are shown. The
observed ratio of the lines is given in the fourth column; the
corresponding
is given in the fifth column. The
temperature used is discussed in the following section, but is
unimportant since these line ratios are essentially determined by the
density. The [Ne III] and [Ne V] infrared line ratios sometimes
give impossible values of density in other nebulae.
The electron density appears to vary quite a bit. It is difficult to judge
whether
this is a real variation or is caused by observational uncertainties. A value
of between 10 000 and 15 000 cm-3 seems to be an average value. We have
used a value of 12 000 cm-3 in calculating ionic abundances. There is
a slight indication that the electron density varies with ionization potential
in a systematic way, such that lower densities are found at lower ionization
potentials, thus further out in the nebula. It is interesting to compare this
value of the density with the rms density found from the H
line. This
depends on the distance of the nebula which is not accurately known,
and on the angular size of the nebula, another rather uncertain quantity.
Because of the distance uncertainty, we shall turn the calculation around, and
compute what the distance will be for an
density of 15 000 cm-3
in a sphere of radius 2
,
that emits the H
flux given above.This
yields a distance of 6 kpc. This value seems high and is quite uncertain but
it does indicate that the "statistical distance'' may be too low.
Table 5: Electron temperature indicators in Hb 5.
A number of ions have lines originating from energy levels far enough
apart that their ratio is sensitive to the electron temperature. These
are listed in Table 5, which is arranged similarly to the
previous table. A value of
cm-3 has been used.
The electron temperature shows some scatter. There is some indication
that for the lowest ionization potential a slightly lower electron density
would be appropriate. The Ne III temperature is low, but that occurs
rather often in other nebulae for a reason not understood. The Ne V
temperature is high but the intensity of the line at
3425 Å is
uncertain. We have chosen to use an electron temperature between
K and 16 000 K with increasing ionization potential
except for the lowest ionization potential for which a value of 9000 K is
used.
The ionic abundances have been determined using the following equation:
Table 6:
Ionic concentrations and chemical abundances in Hb 5.
Wavelength in Angstrom for all values of
above 1000, otherwise
in
m.
The results are given in Table 6, where the first column lists the
ion concerned, and the second column the line used for the abundance
determination. The third column gives the intensity of the line used
relative to H
.
The fourth column gives the value of electron
temperature used and the fifth column is the ionic abundances. The sixth
column is the Ionization Correction Factor (ICF), which
has been determined empirically. Notice that the ICF is unity only for neon,
helium and argon for which all important stages of ionization have been
measured. The ICF for oxygen was determined by assuming O+4 has the same
abundance as O+3 as will be shown in the model. The ICF for nitrogen has
been determined by assuming that the ratio of N++ to the total nitrogen
abundance is the same as the ratio of Ne++ to the total neon abundance.
This result is consistent with what has been found in other PNe for which IUE
spectra are available so that the higher stages of ionization of nitrogen
are directly measurable. This equality is also found in the model to be
presented in Sect. 6. The ICFs for the other elements given are also found
with the aid of the model. The abundance of carbon is not given because
there is no suitable line. The abundances are determined to within 30 to 40%
since the temperature uncertainty does not play an important role for the
infrared lines.
Table 7 shows a comparison of our abundances with the most important determinations in the past 20 years. There is marginal agreement, usually to within a factor of two. A comparison is also made with the solar abundance (Asplund et al. 2005) for all elements except neon and argon). These last two elements have been discussed by Pottasch & Bernard-Salas (2006) and are essentially taken from the neon to magnesium ratio found by Feldman & Widing (2003) and the magnesium to hydrogen ratio given by Asplund et al.
The helium abundance has been derived using the theoretical work of
Benjamin et al. (1999). For recombination of singly ionized
helium, most weight is given to the
5875 Å line , because
the theoretical determination of this line is the most reliable. The
abundance of helium is slightly lower than previous determinations due to
their inclusion of the
6678 Å line which we consider unreliable.
Table 7: Comparison of abundances in Hb 5.
The nitrogen abundance is somewhat lower than earlier determinations. It is a better determination, because the N++ ion, which is the principle ionization stage, was only estimated in the earlier work and in the far infrared it is measurable. The nitrogen abundance is still more than ten times solar. Iron is much less abundant than it is in the sun as it is in most nebulae where it can be measured. Presumably it has been converted into "dust''. It is rather uncertain because only three ionization stages have been measured. Magnesium appears less abundant than in the sun, but again its abundance is uncertain. The other elements are more or less solar.
It is difficult to determine the errors in the abundance
determination. The reason for this is the following. The error can
occur at several stages in the determination. An error can occur in
the intensity determination and this can be specified: it is probably
less than 30% and probably is lower for the stronger lines. An error may
occur in correcting for the extinction, either because the extinction
is incorrect or the average reddening law is not applicable. We have
tried to minimize this possibility by making use of known atomic
constants to relate the various parts of the spectrum. Thus the ratio
of the infrared spectrum to the visible spectrum is fixed by the ratio
of Br
to H
which is essentially an atomic constant, since it
is almost independent of temperature and density for the values of these
quantities of interest in this nebula..
A further error is introduced by the correction for unseen stages of ionization. This varies with the element, but is usually small because very many ionization stages are observed. Thus for neon all but neutral neon is observed, so that the error is negligible. This is also true for argon and to a lesser extent for oxygen. For nitrogen and sulfur higher stages of ionization which do contribute somewhat to the abundance.
There is also an error due to an incorrect determination of the electron temperature. This is very small for ions represented by infrared lines, so that the abundances of neon, argon and sulfur will not be affected. The other elements are also less affected than when only the optical spectrum is available.
The central star has an uncertain observed blue magnitude of 18.6 (Tylenda
et al. 2003). Corrected for extinction,
EB-V=1.09, this is a blue
magnitude of 14.2, a visual magnitude of 14.5, and leads to a hydrogen
Zanstra temperature
Tz(H)=100 000 K. The ionized helium Zanstra temperature
is slightly higher Tz(HeII)=130 000 K. The value of the
ratio of "forbidden line emission'' (including all collisionally
excited emission) to H
is about 35, but no ultraviolet lines have been
observed and they usually make an important contribution.This indicates a
lower limit to an energy
balance temperature (
)
of 120 000 K. The presence of high
ionization lines in the spectrum of the nebula, especially Ne+5, probably
indicates a somewhat higher temperature, possibly exceeding 150 000 K. If the star is at a distance of 3.2 kpc and has a temperature of 170 000 K, it will
have a radius of
and a luminosity of
.
We stress
however that the stellar magnitude and the distance are only approximations so
that the radius and luminosity are quite uncertain.
The far-IR fine structure lines seen in the ISO spectra may be formed in the PDR (later we actually show the effect of not including the PDR on these lines), and hence this would have a bearing on the accuracy of the abundance determination since from our past experience with modeling other PNe, we found that a simple "star + nebular shell'' structure in the model calculations could not produce these lines properly.
This method can take into account the presence of dust and molecules in the nebular material and elsewhere and thus is very comprehensive in approach. While the line ratio method is simple and fast, the ICFs rest on uncertain physics. To this end, modeling serves as an effective means and the whole set of parameters are determined in an unified way, assuring self consistency. Finally, this way one gets a good physical insight about the PN, the method and the observations.
It is with this in mind that we have constructed what we call an "end-to-end model'' with the code Cloudy, using the latest version C06.02a (Ferland et al. 1998). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a PN has been modelled in this way.
We would like to briefly discuss about PDRs in general and then outline some details as to the implementation of this in Cloudy. Firstly although PDRs have been computed to interpret observations (particularly H2), it should be noted that computing PDR spectra in an isolated way, which seems to be the prevailing culture, is unnatural in the sense that one always finds them in tandem with a PN or HII region or other host of astrophysical environs; for details of PDRs and their model computations, see the review by Hollenbach & Tielens (1997). Secondly, assuming an incident energy on the PDR and doing an isolated PDR modeling seems to be fraught with the danger of being arbitrary too since the incident energy is not known a priori, and often this is treated as a free-parameter to overcome this. Only an integral approach would be more realistic which is what we aim here.
We briefly give some details of the chemistry network in Cloudy here. Only a sketchy and generic description is possible. Cloudy has provision to consider a whole range of molecules commonly observed. Many details are available in the user manual, wherein all references to the literature are also cited. Since hydrogen molecule is perhaps the most important of all in many ways, the microphysics of this molecule has been exhaustively treated in the code, and details of this are available in Shaw et al. (2005); this paper too has relevant references to the chemistry network in Cloudy. The model H2 molecule in Cloudy is so extensive that it altogether comprises a whopping number of 1893 levels capable of producing 524 387 lines. Also, one can find examples of self-consistent treatment of many prominent molecules in HII regions with inclusion of PDRs in the work by Abel et al. (2005) using Cloudy.
Once included, molecules are considered in all regions starting from the
inner edge to the outer edge of the model and not necessarily in the PDR
alone. The ion-molecule network includes among others
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In a model which includes the presence of molecules, the presence of grains
if introduced, can play an important role in the gas-grain interactions
and these
are treated in considerable detail in Cloudy.
molecular formation
on the grain surfaces is a dominant process depending on conditions.
The photodissociation of
molecules by UV photons of energy between
11.2 and
13.6 eV (the "Solomon process'') could be
significant too; but grains can absorb these photons and thus reduce/prevent it.
Electron temperature determination also involves gas-grain thermal exchanges.
From the available literature on Hb 5, we find that the IRAS measured
fluxes in the 12, 25, 60 and 100
m bands are substantial indicating that a
large number of dust grains are present. The uncorrected flux densities
in these bands are respectively 11.7, 79.2, 134.5 and 311.8 Jy.
The peak in the region around 100
m is a rough indicator of a cool
dust at about 30 K. Emission features of PAHs (Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbon)
have been observed with ISO by Peeters et al. (2002).
Therefore we have included grains also in the modeling.
In addition to using the model atmosphere fluxes from Rauch (2003) for the CSPN, we also introduced the cosmic ray background radiation as additional ionizing source. That apart, there could be Galactic (general) background radiation too playing a role; but we ruled this out for the case of Hb 5 since it is embedded in the central disk, close to the galactic center. Due to the high density of interstellar matter expected, it is reasonable to expect the quantum of the background radiation to be insignificant. We note that these background radiation sources should be considered if one is computing a PDR.
Hb 5 presents a bipolar geometry in the HST image (Fig. 1). There are other
2-D images extracted from long slit spectra presented in the web-site of
Melissa Rice
.
These images are in He II 4686 Å, H
,
S II 6717 Å and
S II 6731 Å. From the first two of these four, one can see that
there is a central compact region from where most of the optical emission
lines arise. There is also a narrow-band
m image of Hb 5 presented by Davis et al. (2003). They also present a continuum
subtracted contour plot of this image. Based on these, we decided that it
is preferable to use a spherical geometry for this PN with a PDR at the outer
edge delimited by the
m contour plot; this would be both
conceptually simple and reasonably adequate as it can be sensibly assumed
that most of the optical and ISO spectra arise within a centrally located
spherical region, although the angular dimensions of Hb 5 as seen in the
HST image are much larger. It must be noted that the radio observations
mentioned earlier also support a smaller angular dimension for most of the
emission.
We summarize some aspects of the nitty-gritty of building the model for Hb 5
here. Firstly we experimented with a constant density model but this
did not work out and there was already some indication of variation of
density across the nebula (see the earlier section on "electron density'').
So we worked with a variable density map where the density varies radially,
starting from a high value at the inner edge and gradually decreasing outward.
This was fed in as a table and hence one could iterate with changes in
the radial profile between successive runs. We found that the density
maps of Melissa Rice given on the basis of S II lines were of limited
help since the CSPN of Hb 5 being a hot star one would expect sulphur
to be in a much higher ionization stage in the interiors. See for example,
our earlier modeling of
in Surendiranath et al. (2004), where
we have shown the
ionization structure in Fig. 8. We note that the radial variation considered
is within the spherical region modelled.
Regarding dust grains, we experimented with a variety of grains like those typically seen in ISM, pure silicates, pure graphites and PAHs, but we tried only single sized grains in all cases. As we progressed, we changed over to a variable dust density map instead of using a fixed dust to gas ratio (at every radial point) with which we started. We had to experiment with a radial profile of the dust density as was the case with the gas density. It thus became a very complex exercise and computation times were long. Computation time per run depends on whether one included the stochastic heating (also known as quantum heating) of tiny grains. Inclusion would make it very time consuming. Here we have excluded it for the sake of simplicity of the model as well as economy of time.
Further down the path, we wondered whether the excitation of hydrogen
molecules was due to shock or fluorescence; using the diagrams of
Sternberg & Dalgarno (1989) (their Fig. 7a) and the observed
ratio of
m (1.64), we perceived that perhaps
high densities would be needed and shocks may not be needed.
From the above-referred figure which
gives the predicted
spectrum, we calculated that at high densities
one can get the ratio of
lines
as
7.
Davis et al. (2003) quote (their Table 3, Col. 3) the observed ratio of
these lines for Hb 5 to be more than 10 in a region
5 arcsec
from the CSPN and based on their analysis which involves published shock and
PDR models, conclude that both fluorescent and shock excitation may be
important for Hb 5. Indeed, quite high nebular expansion velocities of
250 km s-1
have been observed (see Corradi & Schwartz 1993 and Pishmish et al.
2000) and therefore shocks are not ruled out.
But we decided to work with a rather simple static model and wanted to see
whether we can reproduce the observed line fluxes from stellar and cosmic
ray ionizing radiation. We found that getting the right
densities in the PDR and exciting them to yield the desired flux levels in
the ISO observed lines was difficult simultaneously with
production of the right model spectrum that would match observations.
Parameters of the CSPN had to be adjusted within a narrow range.
And further, it became clear that there was a need to consider a neutral
zone between the nebular (ionized) zone and the PDR. Thus, evolving ideas
forced design changes to the original template which was relatively pedestrian.
Our final model is presented in Table 8 and we discuss more about this
below.
Table 8: Parameters representing the final model.
After a large number of models were computed as discussed in the previous section, it became gradually clear that our final model can only be a heuristic model.
The electron density and temperature as computed by our model is plotted in Fig. 3 against nebular depth, i.e., the radial distance calculated from the inner edge. There is a small but noticeable spurt in Te and Ne near the PDR (see a magnified view in Fig. 6). We discuss the significance of this later, when we come to the topic of the model PDR.
Table 9:
The emission line fluxes (
).
As mentioned earlier we have attempted to obtain a good match for
76 observed lines and these are shown in Table 9.
The overall model spectrum seems to be at variance with
observed spectrum though the match of the hydrogen and helium lines are good
along with the match of the absolute
flux.
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Figure 2: Input density map for gas and dust; r0 is the inner radius of the nebula. r is the radial distance from the CSPN. |
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Figure 3:
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All the diagnostic lines are not reproduced well by the model, and match for most of the heavy element lines in general is not satisfactory. We will look at some aspects of this later.
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Figure 4: Stellar ionizing radiation - Upper curve is the incident radiation; lower curve (broken line) at the bottom right of the panel beyond 912 Å shows the transmitted radiation (attenuated incident continuum) and does not include diffuse emission from the nebula. |
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Figure 5:
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Figure 6:
The formation of |
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But we could achieve a good match for the
lines as follows;
we tried out several ideas over a large number of trial runs,
including adding a secondary cooler companion to the CSPN.
Since Hb 5 is a bipolar PN, the central source might be a binary star
and the radiation from this secondary might be powering the
PDR and particularly the hydrogen molecules. Adding a cooler
companion did not work. We introduced a neutral zone between the ionized
nebular zone and the PDR and suitably modified the gas and dust
density maps (Fig. 2). Density maps (i.e., the radial profiles) were carefully
carved out to bring out desired spectra and this necessitated increasing the
value of the distance to the PN. Given the general idea of the gas density
to be not more than about
(from the first part of this paper),
it became necessary to increase the distance to reproduce the observed
absolute
flux too. This is an important constraint.
We have experimented with a shorter distance
between 1 and 2 kpc (which is roughly the statistical distance estimate) and
found that this would not work. This is mainly because the angular extent
from where most of
flux is coming is small and of course, the
angular size of the molecular hydrogen zone measured from the
m
contours of Davis et al. (2003). There was a need for the neutral
zone too. So to allow sufficient physical volume for all these,
we had to increase the
distance and we had gone up to 3.6 kpc and then later zeroed in on the
value of 3.2 kpc given in Table 8. If the distance were to be much shorter,
it would be more difficult to form a cool PDR at a shorter radial distance
from a very hot CSPN; it might require more shielding grains. So our
model distance seems very sensible. And this makes Hb 5 one of the very
luminous PNe.
And the hump in the gas density (Fig. 2) was again carefully crafted to
achieve the desired results.
We discuss more on this again later, particularly the input density maps
for gas and dust.
Table 10:
Effect on line fluxes due to exclusion of PDR
and cosmic ray background.
.
The mismatch of the far-IR fine structure lines between the model and the observation was a fall-out from which we could not escape. Far-IR lines of O I, C II, Si II, N II and Fe II are all off the mark. Table 10 provides an idea of the role played by the PDR in producing these lines. The dust radiation from the model could not match the observations. We discuss these in more detail later.
We stated above that absolute
flux and line fluxes of H and He
match well.
It must be noted that the principal optical depth in a PN
(with no dust in the ionized nebular shell) is caused by the elements
H and He alone and so from the energetics point of view, this makes the
model CSPN parameters seem reasonable. From our trial models it was found
that the
and
assigned in the final model are pretty good.
Any change in them worsened the absolute
flux and the lines from
highly ionized elements. We also note that
small changes in
(as small as 0.1) can disturb the fluxes of
lines.
Looking at the plot of the incident and transmitted energy curve
(Fig. 4) the absorption below 912 Å is complete. The region longward of
912 Å is very important. The shape of the transmitted energy in the
latter region matters most in the
formation of sufficient column density of
molecules in the PDR and
correct reproduction of its lines measured with ISO. More
on this in the section on PDR below.
We used the "large model of the
molecule'' in Cloudy for the
model calculations.
The formation of molecular hydrogen can be seen in the plots shown in Figs. 5 and 6.
For better view, the plot is not from the inner edge of the nebula.
We did not find any other molecule in sufficient numbers either in the PDR
or in other regions in the model and so only
is plotted.
In addition to
density, one can also see the Te and Ne plotted together.
As can be clearly seen, there is a sudden spurt in the Te after it has
been steady at a very low value in the neutral zone accompanied by a
rise in Ne as well, and then Te gradually falls off; when the Te value reaches
a critical level suitable for the formation of
,
it can be seen that
the
density rises sharply. The maximum value of
density
indicates that about 5e+3 hydrogen atoms are in neutral state
(
in Eq. (2)) near the
end point. Our attempt to reduce the height of the bump in the
(Fig. 2), did not produce the desired
emission.
As can be seen in the dust density map, the number of grains/cc present
in the nebula is varied radially with a suitable formula:
| (3) |
We have analyzed the heating and cooling taking place in this zone by
tabulating (not shown here) the fractional cooling and heating caused by
various agents in the PDR.
The dust density rises in the neutral zone immediately
after the ionized zone at
(depth).
This helps to absorb the FUV photons of energy between
11.2 and
13.6 eV to reduce the impact of the
Solomon process which can lead to part destruction of
by photodissociation.
After this, farther in the radial distance, as one nears
the PDR, there is a rise in the number of grains (this rise in the grain
population is due to the steep rise (hump) in the inputted density map,
n(H) vs "r''). The cause of the sudden spurt in the Te near
2.7e17 cm
is basically the lowering of grain charge and potential in a somewhat
abrupt manner (see upper part of Fig. 5). The grain charge is computed
in Cloudy by the method discussed in detail by van Hoof et al.
(2004) which essentially follows the physics in
Weingartner & Draine (2001) with
some modifications. The quantity plotted represents the mean average grain
charge (in units of elementary charge) for a given grain bin (see details
in the above references). The grains in our model are becoming positively
charged as is typical in an ionized region. The grain potential differs from
the grain charge in terms of constants only (grain charge, grain size;) and is
given in units of eV.
This lowering potential in turn leads to increased photoelectric
emission leading to extra heating ("Ne'' also rises due to this spurt in Te and
our analysis of the model output shows that a substantial part of the
rise in Ne is caused by H becoming
as a result of the spurt in
Te, rather than due to photoelectric emission) and this
situation continues at a slowly decreasing rate till we
reach
3.0e17 cm where the
flattens out (see Fig. 2).
Around this point the grain charge and potential rise up which result
in less photoelectric heating thus lowering
Te and when Te reaches around 1100 K, the formation rate of
molecules
on the grain surface increases at a high rate (Figs. 5 and 6) and
the
emission in the observed lines rise up. The formation rates
plotted are relative contribution to the
formation via different
mechanisms. The number given is the fractional contribution and the sum of
all contributions by all the methods is treated as unity. More description on
this aspect and the plot follows later.
Note also that the number of grains decreases at this point (Fig. 2)
since the number of neutral hydrogen decreases (see Eq. (3)) as a result of
increased
formation. The grain temperature (
)
is very critical
in the matter of evaporation of the hydrogen atom from the grain surface
before it can react to form
;
has to remain below
75 K to
reduce such losses. Looking at the top part of Fig. 6, it can be seen that
it hovers around 60 K only. At about 2.963e17 cm, the grain charge goes up,
the contribution of grain heating comes down (as also noted in the
thermal balance analysis) and Te drops rather abruptly. So it is clear that
the grain charge variation triggers both the rise and the fall in Te.
The spurt in Te is accompanied by the rise in
m line emission, the
m line emission,
the cooling of gas by grains (grain recombination cooling), and the cooling
due to
being excited (within the ground state) by
collisions, which are major coolants.
m and
m also count as other coolants.
The dominant role gets interchanged amongst the various
major coolants as we go further in radial depth starting from
2.7e17 cm.
Beyond
3.0e17 cm, as the Te falls lower, the
formation takes place at a reduced rate and tapers off towards the end
(the neutral hydrogen population is substantial in this outskirt; note the
value given in the beginning of this subsection).
The main heating agent in the PDR is the grain photoelectric heating
(
98%). This is true of all the models we tested.
In one model, where we reduced the abundance of C by 25%, the abovementioned
spurt in Te did not occur and the
lines became very weak.
The strength of the
lines is sensitive to the abundance of Si also.
We also note that in models where we could form
in sufficient number
at a shorter radial distance but at lower Te (compared to our final
model's result shown in Fig. 6), weak
lines were produced. So the
electron temperature in the PDR has to be at an optimal value to get the
emission right. Because of such delicate adjustments needed, we did not
invoke the idea of depletion of refractive elements in our numerical
experiments, although it should be done since the quantum of dust is very
high in the finalized model. This means our final model abundances
may not be very realistic. The hump in the gas
density map looks quite realistic, since without it we were unable to
get the
formation and emission to match observation.
The most important physical insight derived from modeling is that the presence of
dust grains in the neutral zone (in reducing the full impact of the
destruction of
by Solomon process) and
in the PDR (in augmenting
formation), plays a key role in
getting the hydrogen molecules to form to the desired density and
to emit the desired level of fluxes seen in the ISO observations.
We had found from running a number of models that unless sufficient
dust grains are added the
lines do not budge easily and light up.
We had earlier tried dust grains in all the
regions from the inner edge to outer edge with the dust to gas ratio typical
of PNe, but that did not work. We have seen models with sufficiently large
number of
molecules but with very weak emission in their lines. Only upon increasing the grain population
enormously in the neutral zone and the PDR, (and making it practically nil
in the ionized zone) we could get the
lines really
blazing. Thereupon by suitable tuning we obtained
the final model. Adding
a cooler companion star did not work nor adjusting any other parameter.
We note here that the dust grains we considered were silicate grains
of radius
m. We had tried other types too; some models were
tried with PAHs but we did not get encouraging results.
As our internalized dust grain model was minimalistic, we did not compare
dust radiation output with observations, namely,
i) PAH emission features seen in ISO and ii) the IRAS band fluxes.
The mean dust to gas ratio by mass (as computed within the model) is
1.67e-2. We have estimated the total mass of the nebula using the
density map as
2.19
.
(This neglects the mass in the heavy
elements starting from C upwards.) Therefore the total dust mass in the
nebula is
0.036
! This is much higher than the
typical dust mass expected in a PN. Generalizing this leads to a
significant new speculative insight that PDRs may harbour lots of dust grains.
The reason we believe that this may well be a generalized phenomenon is that
in the PDR literature one finds that a number of workers have found
models showing an emission deficit in
lines compared to observations
(see Habart et al. 2005). Enhanced dust to gas ratio in the PDR due
to gas-grain drift is found to reproduce
observations in the reflection
nebula NGC 2023 in the work by Draine & Bertoldi (2000).
We became aware of these works only after we independently hit upon the
idea of enhancing dust grains in the neutral zone and the PDR to
achieve desired emission level in
lines. We note here that
recently Klaas et al. (2006) have found similar high dust to gas
ratio in NGC 7008 and so our value is not unusual.
The number densities of
are plotted in Fig. 7 along
with Te. The densities are very negligible, but the density variations
in the PDR region where Te spurts is interesting. In the bottom part of
Fig. 5, the
formation rate due to the three dominant mechanisms are
shown. The three curves from top to bottom represent respectively the
following: formation on grain surface, formation due to the
reactions
![]() |
Figure 7:
The formation of |
| Open with DEXTER | |
About some reported CO observations (see Phillips et al. 1969
and Phillips & Mampaso 1992) on Hb 5: In general one needs
to go farther in radial distance beyond the
zone to get CO to form
and start emitting. In the PDR literature the parameter
is used rather
than radial distance and its value in our final model is 0.17. This is the
value of the extinction due to the internal dust in the nebula.
In our model, the observed
emission image size
delimited the end point of computation.
We find that the reported observations of CO in Hb 5 are presently too uncertain to consider them seriously here. There is a need to better reobserve Hb 5 in the CO lines.
We list the significant insights we obtained from our modeling here; since these insights are derived from a heuristic model, they should be treated with caution.
Exclusion of cosmic ray background radiation can affect molecular hydrogen emission. If the ionized zone alone is used for abundance determination, the geometrical location of incidence of background radiation (other than cosmic rays), would not be properly treated. We note here that Cloudy does not implement a rigourous radiative transfer and it uses only an escape probability mechanism; it takes care of various kinds of background radiations including those that would matter for a PN in an intracluster medium in the extragalactic context, for example, in an approximate way (see user manual).
The abundances can be used to discuss the evolutionary state by comparing them
to theoretical evolutionary models. The models given by
Karakas (2003) are used to make this comparison.
The most noticeable piece of information is the high N/O ratio. It has a value
of about 1.5 and is one of the higher values measured. It indicates that "hot
bottom burning'' has taken place. This occurs in higher mass stars, indicating
that Hb 5 originated from a star of higher than 4
.
There is no
indication that oxygen has been depleted however, as is the case for the
central stars of NGC 6302, Mz3 and NGC 6537, This probably eliminates
stellar values higher than 5
,
placing a severe limit on the
mass of the exciting star.
We have presented the ISO far infrared spectrum of Hb 5. Including the visual spectrum has enabled us to derive nebular abundances of ten elements using the ICF method. In addition, a detailed photoionization model that includes a neutral region and a photodissociation region (i.e., an end-to-end model) has been presented. Grains and molecules have been treated self-consistently in this procedure. As discussed earlier in detail, we conclude that this can only serve as a heuristic model. The model CSPN parameters and the distance seem very sensible, while the abundances are not reliable. We recommend the abundances from the ICF method for Hb 5. These are given in Table 7.
More observations and computations of similar nature are needed for a large number of objects to put some of the possibilities listed above on a more firm foundation since these intuitive ideas based on heuristic modeling have important implications in topics like theory of PDRs, role of dust grains in the galactic chemical history and evolution.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the use of SIMBAD and ADS for this work.
| Label | line | Model Flux |
|
|
||
Fe 2 |
1216A | 49.4 |
| He 2 | 1640A | 384.9 |
| He 2 | 1215A | 121.8 |
| He 2 | 1085A | 55.5 |
| He 2 | 1025A | 30.5 |
| He 2 | 3203A | 23.1 |
| C 3 | 1910A | 132.4 |
| C 3 | 1907A | 137.3 |
| C 4 | 1551A | 164.8 |
| C 4 | 1548A | 341.5 |
| N 3 | 1752A | 30.9 |
| N 3 | 1751A | 49.7 |
| N 3 | 991.0A | 29.6 |
| N 4 | 1486A | 130.9 |
| N 4 | 1485A | 166.4 |
| N 5 | 1243A | 82.4 |
| N 5 | 1239A | 174.0 |
| TOTL | 1665A | 23.8 |
| TOTL | 1402A | 30.1 |
| O 5 | 1218A | 27.7 |
| O 5 | 1211A | 37.1 |
| TOTL | 1035A | 25.7 |
| Ne 4 | 2424A | 66.3 |
| TOTL | 2798A | 33.2 |
| Mg 2 | 2796A | 22.1 |