Molecular shells in IRC+10216: tracing the mass loss history

Thermally-pulsating AGO stars provide three-fourths of the matter returned to the interstellar medium. The mass and chemical composition of their ejecta largely control the chemical evolution of galaxies. Yet, both the mass loss process and the gas chemical composition remain poorly understood. We present maps of the extended (CO)-C-12 and (CO)-C-13 emissions in IRC+10216, the envelope of CW I,eo, the high mass loss star the closest to the Sun. IRC+10216 is nearly spherical and expands radially with a velocity of 14.5 km s(-1) The observations were made On-the-Fly with the IRAM 30 m telescope; their sensibility, calibration, and angular resolution are far higher than all previous studies. The telescope resolution at lambda = 1.3 mm (11 '' HPBVV) corresponds to an expansion time of 500 yr. The CO emission consists of a centrally peaked pedestal and a series of bright, nearly spherical shells. It peaks on CVV Leo and remains relatively strong up to r(phot) = 180 ''. Further out the emission becomes very weak and vanishes as CO gets photodissociated. As CO is the best tracer of the gas up to r(phot), the maps show the mass loss history in the last 8000 yr. The bright CO shells denote over-dense regions. They show that the mass loss process is highly variable on timescales of hundreds of years. The new data, however, do not support previous claims of a strong decrease of the average mass loss in the last few thousand years. The over-dense shells are not perfectly concentric and extend farther to the N-NW. The typical shell separation is 800-1000 yr in the middle of the envelope, but seems to increase outwards. The shell-intershell brightness contrast is >= 3. All those key features can be accounted for if CW Leo has a companion star with a period similar or equal to 800 yr that increases the mass loss rate when it comes close to periastron. Higher angular resolution observations are needed to fully resolve the dense shells and measure the density contrast. The latter plays an essential role in our understanding of the envelope chemistry.