Variability in proto-planetary nebulae. I. Light curve studies of 12 carbon-rich objects

Abstract

We have carried out long-term (14 years) V and R photometric monitoring of 12 carbon-rich proto-planetary nebulae. The light and color curves display variability in all of them. The light curves are complex and suggest multiple periods, changing periods, and/or changing amplitudes, which are attributed to pulsation. A dominant period has been determined for each and found to be in the range of ∼150 days for the coolest (G8) to 35–40 days for the warmest (F3). A clear, linear inverse relationship has been found in the sample between the pulsation period and the effective temperature and also an inverse relationship between the amplitude of light variation and the effective temperature. These are consistent with the expectation for a pulsating post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) star evolving toward higher temperature at constant luminosity. The published spectral energy distributions and mid-infrared images show these objects to have cool (200 K), detached dust shells and published models imply that intensive mass loss ended 400–2000 years ago. The detection of periods as long as 150 days in these requires a revision in the published post-AGB evolution models that couple the pulsation period to the mass loss rate and that assume that intensive mass loss ended when the pulsation period had decreased to 100 days. This revision will have the effect of extending the timescale for the early phases of post-AGB evolution. It appears that real time evolution in the pulsation periods of individual objects may be detectable on the timescale of two or three decades.