On the Origin of Morphological Structures of Planetary Nebulae

Abstract

We suggest that most of the mass in planetary nebulae (PNe) resides in the equatorial region and the spherical envelope and the optically bright lobes of PNe are in fact low-density cavities cleared out by fast outflows and photoionized by UV photons leaked from the torus. The nature of multi-polar PNe is discussed under this framework.

Keywords

• planetary nebulae
• asymptotic giant branch stars
• mass loss