On the relation between abundances in planetary nebulae and their central star evolution

Using recent model-based abundance determinations, which simultaneously determined also the central star temperatures and luminosities, the relation between nebular abundances in galactic bulge planetary nebulae and their central star evolution is studied. The currently existing (hydrogen burning) post-AGB evolutionary scenarios lead to the expectation that there is a strong correlation between the luminosity during the 'horizontal' phase and the enrichment in He and N or the abundances of elements such as 0, Ne, Ar and S which are unaffected in the previous stages of evolution. Contrary to that expectation, this work clearly shows that such correlations are difficult to observe.