No Arabic abstract
New Planetary Nebulae (PNe) were discovered through an [O III] 5007 A emission line survey in the Galactic bulge region with l>0 deg. We detected 240 objects, including 44 new PNe. Deep Halpha+[N II] CCD images as well as low resolution spectra were obtained for the new PNe in order to study them in detail. Preliminary photo-ionization models of the new PNe with Cloudy resulted in first estimates of the physical parameters and abundances. They are compared to the abundances of Galactic PNe.
We investigate Galactic bulge planetary nebulae without emission-line central stars for which peculiar infrared spectra have been obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, including the simultaneous signs of oxygen and carbon based dust. Three separate sub-groups can be defined characterized by the different chemical composition of the dust and the presence of crystalline and amorphous silicates. We find that the classification based on the dust properties is reflected in the more general properties of these planetary nebulae. However, some observed properties are difficult to relate to the common view of planetary nebulae. In particular, it is challenging to interpret the peculiar gas chemical composition of many analyzed objects in the standard picture of the evolution of planetary nebulae progenitors. We confirm that the dual-dust chemistry phenomenon is not limited to planetary nebulae with emission-line central stars.
The presentation of new results from an [O III] 5007 A survey in a search for planetary nebulae (PNe) in the galactic bulge is continued. A total of 60 objects, including 19 new PNe, have been detected in the remaining 34 per cent of the survey area, while 41 objects are already known. Deep Halpha+[N II] CCD images as well as low resolution spectra have been acquired for these objects. Their spectral signatures suggest that the detected emission originates from photoionized nebulae. In addition, absolute line fluxes have been measured and the electron densities are given. Accurate optical positions and optical diameters are also determined.
We have used the Wide Field Spectrograph on the Australian National University 2.3-m telescope to perform the integral field spectroscopy for a sample of the Galactic planetary nebulae. The spatially resolved velocity distributions of the H$alpha$ emission line were used to determine the kinematic features and nebular orientations. Our findings show that some bulge planetary nebulae toward the Galactic center have a particular orientation.
Previous calculations of the rates and optical depths due to microlensing only considered resolved stars. However, if a faint unresolved star lens is close enough to a resolved star, the event will be seen by the microlensing experiments and attributed to the bighter star. The blending biases the duration, making the contribution of the unresolved stars very significant for short events. This contribution is confused with lensing by brown dwarfs. The exact rates of these blended events are extremly sensitive to the limiting magnitude achieved in the microlensing search. Appropriate calculations of the optical depth and rates are provided here, and illustrated in the case of the DUO and OGLE experiments. The additional contribution of unresolved stars is very significant and probably explains the high optical depth and rates observed towards the Galactic Bulge. The blended unresolved event can be identified using either the color shift or the light curve shape. However, neither of these two methods is apropriate to identify a large number of blended events towards the Bulge. In some cases of good photometry and small impact parameter, an identification is possible, as for the OGLE 5 event, which clearly appears as a case of lensing of an unresolved star. The recent results obtained by the PLANET collaboration indicate that a high resolution and dense sampling of the light curve is possible, and will probably provide a very interesting possibility to correct the blending bias, as demonstrated for OGLE 5. This possibility, is certainly better than a statistical estimation of the lensing rates, which are always prone to some uncertainty. But, at this time, the contribution of unresolved stars must be included in the analyses of microlensing experiments.
Our understanding of the chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge requires the determination of abundances in large samples of giant stars and planetary nebulae (PNe). We discuss PNe abundances in the Galactic bulge and compare these results with those presented in the literature for giant stars. We present the largest, high-quality data-set available for PNe in the direction of the Galactic bulge (inner-disk/bulge). For comparison purposes, we also consider a sample of PNe in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We derive the element abundances in a consistent way for all the PNe studied. By comparing the abundances for the bulge, inner-disk, and LMC, we identify elements that have not been modified during the evolution of the PN progenitor and can be used to trace the bulge chemical enrichment history. We then compare the PN abundances with abundances of bulge field giant. At the metallicity of the bulge, we find that the abundances of O and Ne are close to the values for the interstellar medium at the time of the PN progenitor formation, and hence these elements can be used as tracers of the bulge chemical evolution, in the same way as S and Ar, which are not expected to be affected by nucleosynthetic processes during the evolution of the PN progenitors. The PN oxygen abundance distribution is shifted to lower values by 0.3 dex with respect to the distribution given by giants. A similar shift appears to occur for Ne and S. We discuss possible reasons for this PNe-giant discrepancy and conclude that this is probably due to systematic errors in the abundance derivations in either giants or PNe (or both). We issue an important warning concerning the use of absolute abundances in chemical evolution studies.