Numerical simulations of wind-driven protoplanetary nebulae. II. signatures of atomic emission

TL;DR

This paper uses hydrodynamic simulations to analyze atomic emission signatures in wind-driven protoplanetary nebulae, revealing how different wind-medium compositions affect observable emission features and structures.

Contribution

It introduces detailed atomic emission modeling in protoplanetary nebula simulations, highlighting differences between atomic and molecular wind interactions.

Findings

Atomic wind interactions produce higher excitation and stronger emission.

Shell fragmentation leads to increased shock surface area and oblique shocks.

Position-velocity diagrams show atomic winds have more high-velocity emission.

Abstract

We follow up on our systematic study of axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations of protoplanetary nebula. The aim of this work is to generate the atomic analogues of the $\mathrm H_2$ near-infrared models of Paper I with the ZEUS code modified to include molecular and atomic cooling routines. We investigate stages associated with strong $\mathrm {[Fe II]}$ 1.64 $\mathrm {{\mu m}}$ and $\mathrm {[S II]}$ 6716 {\AA} forbidden lines, the $\mathrm {[O I]}$ 6300 {\AA} airglow line, and H$\mathrm \alpha\, 6563$ {\AA} emission. We simulate ($\mathrm{80\sim200\,km\,s^{-1}}$) dense ($\mathrm{\sim10^{5}\,cm^{-3}}$) outflows expanding into a stationary ambient medium. In the case of an atomic wind interacting with an atomic medium, a decelerating advancing turbulent shell thickens with time. This contrasts with all other cases where a shell fragments into a multitude of cometary-shaped protrusions with weak oblique shocks as the main source of gas excitation. We find that the atomic wind-ambient simulation leads to considerably higher excitation, stronger peak and integrated atomic emission as the nebula expands. The weaker emission when one component is molecular is due to the shell fragmentation into fingers so that the shock surface area is increased and oblique shocks are prevalent. Position-velocity diagrams indicate that the atomic-wind model may be most easy to distinguish with more emission at higher radial velocities. With post-AGB winds and shells often highly obscured and the multitude of configurations that are observed, this study suggests and motivates selection criteria for new surveys.