Temperature Fluctuations in PN

Abstract

For planetary nebulae, empirical abundances can be obtained from the observed emission-lines as long as the electron density, the electron temperature, and the ionization corrections factor are determined. However, due to temperature fluctuations in the emitting gas, the evaluation of the temperature from the observational data is strongly dependent on the method used. The temperature fluctuation is usually characterized by the mean square temperature fluctuation, t 2 (Peimbert and Costero, 1969 — PC).