3-D structures of planetary nebulae

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in 3-D reconstruction techniques for planetary nebulae, emphasizing the importance of accurate modeling and proposing extensions to current assumptions for better results.

Contribution

It introduces an extension to the homologous expansion assumption to improve 3-D reconstructions of planetary nebulae.

Findings

Enhanced 3-D reconstruction accuracy through extended expansion assumptions

Summary of current techniques and software for nebula modeling

Recommendations for future methodological improvements

Abstract

Recent advances in the 3-D reconstruction of planetary nebulae are reviewed. We include not only results for 3-D reconstructions, but also the current techniques in terms of general methods and software. In order to obtain more accurate reconstructions, we suggest to extend the widely used assumption of homologous nebula expansion to map spectroscopically measured velocity to position along the line of sight.