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Graduation Commencement

Astronomy & Space Physics Seminar Abstract

Date: Oct 3 (215 Conference Room Shap Lab at 4:00pm)

Speaker: Orsola De Marco, Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, New York City

Title: Are Planetary Nebulae a Binary Phenomenon?"

Abstract:

Most discussions regarding planetary nebulae implicitly assume that only a minority of these objects have evolved via a binary evolutionary channel. Recent observational evidence points to this fraction being a lot larger than previously believed. The suggestion that most PN might arise from binary interactions cannot be dismissed any longer. This is likely to add new fuel to the debate of how PN got their shape. In this talk I will present what we know and what we do not about binary central stars concentrating on recent work to detect companions using radial velocity techniques. I will also present our current efforts to acquire a better understanding of the common envelope interaction which is responsible for the creation of evolved close binaries and possibly one of the main channels for the production of planetary nebulae. Finally I will review and compare PN, WD, and other related object's estimated birthrates and suggest that stellar evolutionary theory is consistent with a much larger binary fraction for PN central stars than currently acknowledged.