2017MNRAS.468.3450C

We present new Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array multifrequency measurements of a set of stars in transition from the post-AGB to the planetary nebula phase monitored in the radio range over several years. Clear variability is found for five sources. Their light curves show increasing and decreasing patterns. New radio observations at high angular resolution are also presented for two sources. Among these is IRAS 18062 + 2410, whose radio structure is compared to near-infrared images available in the literature. With these new maps, we can estimate inner and outer radii of 0.03 and 0.08 arcsec for the ionized shell, an ionized mass of 3.2 x 10^–4 M_☉ and a density at the inner radius of 7.7 x 10⁵ cm^–3, obtained by modelling the radio shell with the new morphological constraints. The combination of multifrequency data and, where available, spectral-index maps leads to the detection of spectral indices not due to thermal emission, contrary to what one would expect in planetary nebulae. Our results allow us to hypothesize the existence of a link between radio variability and non-thermal emission mechanisms in the nebulae. This link seems to hold for IRAS 22568 + 6141 and may generally hold for those nebulae where the radio flux decreases over time.