Expansion parallax of the planetary nebula IC 418

TL;DR

This study measures the expansion rate of the planetary nebula IC 418 using radio observations over 20 years, deriving its distance and discussing the impact of different expansion velocities on this estimate.

Contribution

First direct radio measurement of IC 418's expansion rate over two decades, leading to a new distance estimate considering theoretical expansion velocity differences.

Findings

Expansion rate of 5.8 ± 1.5 mas/yr measured

Distance to IC 418 estimated at 1.1 ± 0.3 kpc

Adjusted distance of 1.3 ± 0.4 kpc when accounting for faster ionization front

Abstract

In this paper, we present radio continuum observations of the planetary nebula IC 418 obtained at two epochs separated by more than 20 years. These data allow us to show that the angular expansion rate of the ionization front in IC 418 is 5.8 $\pm$ 1.5 mas yr$^{-1}$. If the expansion velocity of the ionization front is equal to the expansion velocity of the gas along the line of sight as measured by optical spectroscopy, then the distance to IC 418 must be 1.1 $\pm$ 0.3 kpc. Recent theoretical predictions appropriate for the case of IC 418, however, suggest that the ionization front may be expanding about 20% faster than the material. Under this assumption, the distance to IC 418 would increase to 1.3 $\pm$ 0.4 kpc.