Planetary nebulae hosting accreting white dwarfs: A possible solution for the mysterious cut-off of Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function?

TL;DR

This study explores how accreting white dwarfs within planetary nebulae influence their observable properties and the planetary nebula luminosity function, potentially explaining the consistent luminosity cut-off observed.

Contribution

It introduces models of steadily accreting white dwarfs affecting planetary nebulae, offering a new explanation for the PNLF cut-off and nebulae characteristics.

Findings

Accreting white dwarfs produce extended, high-excitation planetary nebulae.

The nebulae's properties remain stable over time, with longer visibility.

[O III] luminosity remains near the PNLF cut-off for most accretion rates.

Abstract

Many binary companions to the central stars of planetary nebulae (PNe) are found to be inflated, perhaps indicating that accretion onto the central star might occur during the PN phase. The discovery of a handful of nova eruptions and supersoft X-ray sources inside PNe supports this hypothesis. In this paper, we investigate the impact that hosting a steadily-accreting WD would have on the properties and evolution of a PN. By pairing the published accreting nuclear-burning WD models with radiation transfer simulations, we extract the time evolution of the emission line spectra and ionization properties of a PN that surrounds a 0.6$\rm M_{\odot}$ steadily nuclear-burning WD as a function of the mass accretion rate. We find that accreting WDs are able to form very extended, high excitation, [O III]-bright PNe, which are characterised by high nebular electron temperatures. Their properties remain almost invariant with time and their visibility time can be much longer compared to PNe powered by single WDs. We discuss the implications of our findings in explaining specific characteristics observed in PNe. Finally, we examine how accreting WDs affect the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) by covering WD masses in the range of 0.5-0.8$\rm M_{\odot}$ and for various accretion rates within the steady accretion regime. We find that for all but the lowest accretion rates, the [O III]-luminosities are almost constant and clustered very close to the PNLF cut-off value. Our results suggest that mass-accreting WDs in interacting binaries might play a role in understanding the invariant cut-off of the PNLF.