Metallicity effects on the modified wind momentum of CSPN

TL;DR

This paper investigates how metallicity influences the modified wind momentum in central stars of planetary nebulae, explaining observed dispersions and reconciling mass estimates with known distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a metallicity-dependent analysis of wind momentum, linking stellar metallicity variations to observed dispersions in CSPN wind properties.

Findings

Metallicity variations account for dispersion in wind momentum.

CSPN masses based on core mass-nebular abundance relation align with known distributions.

Metallicity effects explain differences in mass estimates from models and theory.

Abstract

Recent investigations on the central stars of planetary nebulae (CSPN) indicate that the masses based on model atmospheres can be much larger than the masses derived from theoretical mass-luminosity relations. Also, the dispersion in the relation between the modified wind momentum and the luminosity depends on the mass spread of the CSPN, and is larger than observed in massive hot stars. Since the wind characteristics probably depend on the metallicity, we analyze the effects on the modified wind momentum by considering the dispersion in this quantity caused by the stellar metallicity. Our CSPN masses are based on a relation between the core mass and the nebular abundances. We conclude that these masses agree with the known mass distribution both for CSPN and white dwarfs, and that the spread in the modified wind momentum can be explained by the observed metallicity variations.