The Sigma-D Analysis of Recently Detected Radio Planetary Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds

TL;DR

This study investigates the radio surface brightness-diameter relation for planetary nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds, revealing how survey sensitivity affects the observed relation and suggesting many fainter nebulae remain undetected.

Contribution

It applies Monte Carlo analysis to account for sensitivity effects on the $ ext{Σ-D}$ relation, providing new insights into the luminosity function of Magellanic Clouds PNe.

Findings

Sensitivity selection flattens the $ ext{Σ-D}$ slope.

MCs PNe are among the brightest, near the survey sensitivity limit.

The observed sample is likely just the brightest subset of the true population.

Abstract

Our aim is to investigate and analyze the radio surface brightness to diameter ($\Sigma-D$) relation for recently detected, bright radio-continuum planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Magellanic Clouds (MC). We apply a Monte Carlo analysis in order to account for sensitivity selection effects on measured $\Sigma-D$ relation slopes for bright radio PNe in the MCs. In the $\Sigma-D$ plane these radio MCs PNe are positioned among the brightest of the nearby Galactic PNe, and are close to the $D^{-2}$ sensitivity line of the MCs radio maps. The fitted Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) data slope appears to be influenced with survey sensitivity. This suggests the MCs radio PN sample represents just the "tip of the iceberg" of the actual luminosity function. Specifically, our results imply that sensitivity selection tends to flatten the slope of the $\Sigma-D$ relation. Although MCs PNe appear to share the similar evolution properties as Galactic PNe, small number of data points prevented us to further constrain their evolution properties.