Physical properties of the fluorine and neutron-capture element-rich PN Jonckheere 900

TL;DR

This study provides a comprehensive spectroscopic analysis of planetary nebula Jonckheere900, revealing unique elemental abundances, physical conditions, and insights into its progenitor star’s evolution and nucleosynthesis processes.

Contribution

First detailed determination of eight elemental abundances and detection of new spectral lines in J900, linking observations to stellar evolution models.

Findings

Enhanced fluorine and neutron-capture elements in J900

Presence of warm and hot H2 regions in the nebula

Progenitor star likely evolved from a ~2.0 Msun star in He-burning phase

Abstract

We performed detailed spectroscopic analyses of a young C-rich planetary nebula (PN) Jonckheere900 (J900) in order to characterise the properties of the central star and nebula. Of the derived 17 elemental abundances, we present the first determination of eight elemental abundances. We present the first detection of the [F IV] 4059.9 A, [F V] 13.4 um, and [Rb IV] 5759.6 A lines in J900. J900 exhibits a large enhancement of F and neutron-capture elements Se, Kr, Rb, and Xe. We investigated the physical conditions of the H2 zone using the newly detected mid-IR H2 lines while also using the the previously measured near-IR H2 lines, which indicate warm (~670 K) and hot (~3200 K) temperature regions. We built the spectral energy distribution (SED) model to be consistent with all the observed quantities. We found that about 67 % of all dust and gas components (4.5x10^-4 Msun and 0.83 Msun, respectively) exists beyond the ionisation front, indicating critical importance of photodissociation regions in understanding stellar mass loss. The best-fitting SED model indicates that the progenitor evolved from an initially ~2.0 Msun star which had been in the course of the He-burning shell phase. Indeed, the derived elemental abundance pattern is consistent with that predicted by a asymptotic giant branch star nucleosynthesis model for a 2.0 Msun star with Z = 0.003 and partial mixing zone mass of 6.0x10^-3 Msun. Our study demonstrates how accurately determined abundances of C/F/Ne/neutron-capture elements and gas/dust masses help us understand the origin and the internal evolution of the PN progenitors.