ON IRON MONOXIDE NANOPARTICLES AS A CARRIER OF THE MYSTERIOUS 21 μm EMISSION FEATURE IN POST-ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH STARS

Abstract

A prominent, mysterious emission feature peaking at ~20.1 micrometer --- historically known as the ``21 micrometer' feature --- is seen in over two dozen Galactic and Magellanic Cloud carbon-rich post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars. The nature of its carrier remains unknown since the first detection of the 21 micrometer feature in 1989. Over a dozen materials have been suggested as possible carrier candidates. However, none of them has been accepted: they either require too much material (compared to what is available in the circumstellar shells around these post-AGB stars), or exhibit additional emission features which are not seen in these 21 micrometer sources. Recently, iron monoxide (FeO) nanoparticles seem to be a promising carrier candidate as Fe is an abundant element and FeO emits exclusively at ~21 micrometer. In this work, using the proto-typical protoplanetary nebula HD 56126 as a test case, we examine FeO nanoparticles as a carrier for the 21 micrometer feature by modeling their infrared emission, with FeO being stochastically heated by single stellar photons. We find that FeO emits too broad a 21 micrometer feature to explain the observed one and the Fe abundance required to be locked up in FeO exceeds what is available in HD 56126. We therefore conclude that FeO nanoparticles are unlikely responsible for the 21 micrometer feature.