HALO EMISSION OF THE CAT’S EYE NEBULA, NGC 6543: SHOCK EXCITATION BY FAST STELLAR WINDS

Images taken with the Chandra X-ray telescope have for the the first time revealed the central, wind-driven, hot bubble (Chu et al. 2001), while Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFPC2 images of the Cat's Eye nebula, NGC 6543, show that the temperature of the halo region of angular radius ~ 20", is much higher than that of the inner bright H II region. With the coupling of a photoionization calculation to a hydrodynamic simulation, we predict the observed 〔O III〕 line intensities of the halo region with the same O abundance as in the core H II region: oxygen abundance gradient does not appear to exist in the NGC 6543 inner halo. An interaction between a (leaky) fast stellar wind and halo gas may cause the higher excitation temperatures in the halo region and the inner hot bubble region observed with the Chandra X-ray telescope.