Low-excitation atomic gas around evolved stars. I. ISO observations of C-rich nebulae

Abstract

We present ISO LWS and SWS spectra of far-infrared (FIR) atomic fine structure lines in 12 carbon-rich evolved stars including asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, proto-planetary nebulae (PPNe) and planetary nebulae (PNe). The spectra include grating and Fabry-Perot measurements of the line emission of [OI], [CII], [SiI], [SiII], [SI], [FeI], [FeII], [NeII] and [NII]. Only 5 out of our 12 object sample have been detected in at least one of these FIR lines. When we include the 12 oxygen-rich evolved stars from Castro-Carrizo et al. ([CITE], Paper II), we find that atomic line emission is observed only in those sources in which the central star's T_(eff) ≥ 10 000 K. Above this cutoff, the number of detectable lines and the intensity of the line emission increase as T_(eff) increases. These trends suggest that the atomic lines originate from photodissociation regions (PDRs). In general, the kinematics of the atomic gas, derived from line fits to the Fabry-Perot data, are comparable to the molecular expansion velocities. These kinematics are expected for atomic cooling lines associated with circumstellar PDRs. AFGL 618, however, appears exceptional with dual velocity components: a narrow component (<20 km s^(-1)) that may be associated with a PDR, and a broad component (∼66 km s^(-1)) that may be produced in post-shocked, accelerated gas. A new PDR code which properly treats enhanced carbon abundances was used to model the observations of our carbon-rich objects. The predicted line intensities agree reasonably well with the observations. Shock models, however, do not compare well with the observed line intensities. PDR mass estimates ranging from ∼0.01-0.2 M⊙ were derived from the [CII] 158 μm line emission. The atomic gas constitutes only a small fraction of the total mass for young planetary nebulae, but its importance grows significantly as the nebulae evolve. Our overall analysis shows that photodissociation, and not shocks, dominates the evolution of the circumstellar envelope by transforming the initially molecular asymptotic giant branch envelopes into the atomic gas found in proto-planetary and planetary nebulae.

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