2000A&A...359..707M

We report on the properties of the multiple shells in the circumstellar envelope of IRC+10216, using deep optical imaging, including data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The intensity profiles confirm the presence of thin (∼0.5"-3"), limb-brightened shells in the envelope, seen in stellar and ambient Galactic light scattered by dust. The shells are spaced at irregular intervals of ∼5"-20", corresponding to time scales of 200-800yr, although intervals as short as ∼1" (40 yr) are seen close to the star. The location of the main shells shows a good correlation with high-resolution, molecular line maps of the inner envelope, indicating that the dust and gas are well coupled. The shell/intershell density contrast is typically ∼3, and we find that the shells form the dominant mass component of the circumstellar envelope. The shells exhibit important evolutionary effects: the thickness increases with increasing radius, with an effective dispersion velocity of 0.7km/s and there is evidence for shell interactions. Despite the presence of bipolar structure close to the star, the global shell pattern favors a roughly isotropic, episodic mass loss mechanism, with a range of time scales.