Shaping of Planetary Nebulae by Exoplanets

(1) Background: We investigate the hypothesis that exoplanet engulfment can help explain the observed non-spherical planetary nebula population, as a complementary shaping mechanism to the binary hypothesis. The aim is to investigate the extent to which massive planets can explain the population of non-spherical planetary nebulae
(2) Methods: This research utilises a new tool to calculate the planet-fraction of planetary nebulae progenitor stars called SIMSPLASH
(3) Results: we conclude that &sim
15%&ndash
30% of non-spherical planetary nebulae around single stars will have a history in which they engulfed a massive planet on the AGB
and (4) Conclusions: Engulfment of massive exoplanets may contribute significantly to the formation of non-spherical planetary nebulae around single stars, yet appears to be insufficient to explain them all.