TY - JOUR
T1 - The Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function
T2 - Pieces of the Puzzle
AU - Ciardullo, R.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the organizers of the MASH workshop for supporting this review, and the anonymous referee for excellent comments on the first draft of this text. The work was supported by NSF grant AST 06-07416.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Extragalactic surveys in the emission line of [O iii] λ 5007 have provided us with the absolute line strengths of large, homogeneous sets of planetary nebulae. These data have been used to address a host of problems, from the measurement of the extragalactic distance scale, to the study of stellar populations. I review our current understanding of the [O iii] planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF), and discuss some of the physical processes that effect its structure. I also describe the features of the H PNLF, a function that, upon first glance, looks similar to the [O iii] PNLF, but which includes a very different set of objects. Finally, I discuss recent measurements of α, the number of PNe found in a stellar population, normalized to that population's bolometric luminosity. I show that, contrary to expectations, the values of found in actively star-forming spirals are essentially the same as those measured in late-type elliptical and lenticular systems. I discuss how this result sheds light on the physics of the planetary nebula phenomenon.
AB - Extragalactic surveys in the emission line of [O iii] λ 5007 have provided us with the absolute line strengths of large, homogeneous sets of planetary nebulae. These data have been used to address a host of problems, from the measurement of the extragalactic distance scale, to the study of stellar populations. I review our current understanding of the [O iii] planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF), and discuss some of the physical processes that effect its structure. I also describe the features of the H PNLF, a function that, upon first glance, looks similar to the [O iii] PNLF, but which includes a very different set of objects. Finally, I discuss recent measurements of α, the number of PNe found in a stellar population, normalized to that population's bolometric luminosity. I show that, contrary to expectations, the values of found in actively star-forming spirals are essentially the same as those measured in late-type elliptical and lenticular systems. I discuss how this result sheds light on the physics of the planetary nebula phenomenon.
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U2 - 10.1071/AS09022
DO - 10.1071/AS09022
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953164125
SN - 1323-3580
VL - 27
SP - 149
EP - 155
JO - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
JF - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
IS - 2
ER -