New detected CO(1-0) emission from planetary nebulae

Abstract

We report the results of CO(1-0) (J=l-0) observations for 20 selected planetary nebulae (PNe), using the 13.7 m radio telescope of Purple Mountain Observatory at the Qinghai Station. Due to weak CO(1-0) emission, long integrated time observations have been carried out for most of sampled PNe. Among these PNe, nine are first detections in CO(1-0) named NGC 6445, Ml-59, M4-9, M2-51, M4-18, He2-459, Sh2-71, K3-31, M2-52, and one is the first possible detection named V-Vl-8, a probably misclassified PN. NGC 6445, Ml-59, M4-9 and M2-51 have been detected in CO(2-1)(J=2-1). Although having been observed in previous CO surveys, Sh2-71 and M4-18 were not detected in CO; M2-52, K3-31, He2-459 are the first detected PNe in CO emission and V-Vl-8 is given with a first completed spectrum detected in CO(1-0). Comparing these data with other previous observational ones, we discuss the relationships between CO(1-0) emission and evolution of PNe: While the nebular radii increase, the CO(l-0) line integrated intensities multiplied by distances have a decreasing trend. Also the masses of molecular envelopes (from 0.001 to 1 M⊙) for PNe are decreased with increasing nebular radii. All the results mean the CO(1-0) emission decreases dramatically with the nebular evolution. The detectability of CO restricted by different PNe which have different dust properties and different evolutionary stages is also analyzed.