Bipolar Planetary Nebulae from Outflow Collimation by Common Envelope Evolution

TL;DR

This study demonstrates through 3D hydrodynamic simulations that bipolar planetary nebulae can form from spherical winds deflected by common envelope ejecta, producing collimated outflows even without initially collimated winds.

Contribution

It introduces the shock focused inertial confinement (SFIC) model, showing how spherical winds can be collimated into bipolar outflows by interaction with CE ejecta, a novel insight.

Findings

Highly collimated bipolar outflows emerge from spherical winds interacting with CE ejecta.

Asymmetries are observed between lobes, especially at lower wind momenta with cooling.

The SFIC model reveals detailed shock structures and a lens-shaped inner shock feature.

Abstract

The morphology of bipolar planetary nebulae (PNe) can be attributed to interactions between a fast wind from the central engine and dense toroidal shaped ejecta left over from common envelope (CE) evolution. Here we use the 3-D hydrodynamic AMR code AstroBEAR to study the possibility that bipolar PN outflows can emerge collimated even from an uncollimated spherical wind in the aftermath of a CE event. The output of a single CE simulation via the SPH code PHANTOM serves as the initial conditions. Four cases of winds, all with high enough momenta to account for observed high momenta preplanetary nebula outflows, are injected spherically from the region of the CE binary remnant into the ejecta. We compare cases with two different momenta and cases with no radiative cooling versus application of optically thin emission via a cooling curve to the outflow. Our simulations show that in all cases highly collimated bipolar outflows result from deflection of the spherical wind via the interaction with the CE ejecta. Significant asymmetries between the top and bottom lobes are seen in all cases. The asymmetry is strongest for the lower momentum case with radiative cooling. While real post CE winds may be aspherical, our models show that collimation via "inertial confinement" will be strong enough to create jet-like outflows even beginning with maximally uncollimated drivers. Our simulations reveal detailed shock structures in the shock focused inertial confinement (SFIC) model and develop a lens-shaped inner shock that is a new feature of SFIC driven bipolar lobes.