The formation of `columns crowns' by jets interacting with a circumstellar dense shell

TL;DR

This study uses 3D hydrodynamical simulations to explore how jets interacting with a dense shell can produce a bipolar nebula with a crown-like structure of protruding columns, resembling features observed in planetary nebulae.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel simulation of jet-shell interactions that results in a 'columns crown' structure, providing insights into nebula morphology formation.

Findings

Jets create bipolar nebulae with connected bubbles and protruding tongues.

Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities lead to column formation resembling a crown.

The simulated structures resemble features of the planetary nebula Menzel 3.

Abstract

We conduct three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of two opposite jets that interact with a spherical slow wind that includes a denser shell embedded within it, and obtain a bipolar nebula where each of the two lobes is composed of two connected bubbles and Rayleigh-Taylor instability tongues that protrude from the outer bubble and form the `columns crown'. The jets are launched for a short time of 17 years and inflate a bipolar nebula inside a slow wind. When the bipolar structure encounters the dense shell, the interaction causes each of the two lobes to split to two connected bubbles. The interaction is prone to Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that form tongues that protrude as columns from the outer bubble. The bases of the columns form a ring on the surface of the outer bubble, and the structure resemble a crown that we term the columns crown. This structure resembles, but is not identical to, the many filaments that protrude from the lobes of the bipolar planetary nebula Menzel~3. We discuss our results in comparison to the structure of Menzel~3 and the ways by which the discrepancies can be reconciled, and possibly turn our failure to reproduce the exact structure of Menzel~3 to a success with jets-shell interaction simulations that include more ingredients.