| Description |
One of the most spectacular phases in the evolution of intermediate mass stars takes place at the end of their lives. At the end of the AGB, the central star dashes across the HR diagram from the red giant to the blue dwarf region. At the same time, the spherically symmetric and slowly expanding circumstellar envelopes around AGB stars become planetary nebulae (PNe), displaying a large variety of shapes and structures far more complex. This transformation takes place at the very end of the AGB, and it is due to the interaction of fast and bipolar molecular winds with the fossil AGB circumstellar envelope. The origin of these post-AGB winds is still unclear, but we know that the resulting two-wind interactions are only active during a very short period of time, virgul 100 yr, but still they are able to strongly modify the kinematics of the nebulae and re-shape them. To better understand these processes we must study the warm molecular gas component of early post-AGB sources, both pre-planetary nebulae (pPNe) and young PNe. Herschel/HIFI is very well suited at this, because its spectral coverage, high velocity resolution, and superb sensitivity. For these reasons, 10 pPNe and young PNe were included in the KPGT HIFISTARS, were a large number of spectral lines are observed in a moderate number of frequency setups, but just at the central point. In many cases this is simply enough, since most post-AGB sources in HIFIStars are compact. However there are three cases in which the non spherically symmetric structures seen in the warm gas are larger than the telescope beam: OH231.8+4.2, NGC7027 and NGC6302. Therefore we propose to perform some additional points in these three sources in a selected sample of HIFISTARS frequency setups, were we have detected strong lines of CO, H2O, NH3 and OH. These observations are crucial to understand the kinematics and interactions traced by these warm gas probes, and gain insight in the intricate problem of the post-AGB dynamics. |
