Planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) is a secondarydistance indicator used in
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
planetary nebula
A planetary nebula (PN, plural PNe) is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.
The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer because they are unrelate ...
(PNe) which are members of the old stellar populations (
Population II
During 1944, Walter Baade categorized groups of stars within the Milky Way into stellar populations.
In the abstract of the article by Baade, he recognizes that Jan Oort originally conceived this type of classification in 1926:
Baade noticed th ...
).
It can be used to determine distances to both
spiral
In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point.
Helices
Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:elliptical galaxies despite their completely different stellar populations and is part of the Extragalactic Distance Scale.
Procedure
The distance estimate to a galaxy using the PNLF requires discovery of such an object in the target galaxy that is visible at λ5007 but not when the entire spectrum is considered. These points are candidate PNe, however, there are three other types of objects that would also exhibit such an emission line that must be filtered out: HII regions,
supernova remnant
A supernova remnant (SNR) is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova. The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion, and the interstellar ma ...
s, and Lyα galaxies. After the PNe are determined, to estimate a distance one must measure their monochromatic IIIλ5007 luminosity. What remains is a statistical sample of
PNe. The observed luminosity function is then fitted to some standard law.
Finally, one must estimate the foreground interstellar extinction. The two sources of extinction, are from within the
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...
and the internal extinction of the target galaxy. The first is well known and can be taken from sources such as reddening maps computed from H I measurements and galaxy counts or from
IRAS
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite ( Dutch: ''Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet'') (IRAS) was the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths. Launched on 25 January 1983, its mission lasted ten mo ...
and DIRBE satellite experiments. The later type of extinction, occurs only in target galaxies which are either late type
spiral
In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point.
Helices
Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:irregular. However, this extinction is difficult to measure. In the Milky Way, the scale height of PNe is much bigger than that of the dust. Observational data and models support that this holds true for other galaxies, that the bright edge of the PNLF is primarily due to PNe in front of the dust layer. The data and models support a less than 0.05
apparent magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's li ...
internal extinction of a galaxy's PNe.
Physics behind process
The PNLF method is unbiased by
metallicity
In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as ...
. This is because
oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as we ...
is a primary nebular coolant; any drop in its concentration raises the plasma's electron temperature and raises the amount of collisional excitations per ion. This compensates for having a smaller number of emitting ions in the PNe resulting in little change in the λ5007 emissions . Consequently, a reduction in oxygen density only lowers the emergent IIIλ5007 emission line intensity by approximately the square root of the difference in abundance. At the same time, the PNe's core responds to metallicity the opposite way. In the case where the metallicity of the progenitor star is smaller, the PNe's central star will be a bit more massive and its illuminating ultraviolet flux will be a bit greater. This added energy almost precisely accounts for the decreased emissions of the PNe. Consequently, the total IIIλ5007 luminosity that is produced by a PNe is practically
uncorrelated to metallicity. This beneficial negation is in agreement with more precise models of PNe evolution. Only in extremely metal-poor PNe does the brightness of the PNLF cutoff dim by more than a small percentage.
The relative independence of the PNLF cutoff with respect to population age is harder to understand. The IIIλ5007 flux of a PNe directly correlates to the brightness of its central star. Further, the brightness of its central star directly correlates to its mass and the central star's mass directly varies in relation to its progenitor's mass. However, by observation, it is demonstrated that reduced brightness does not happen.