2026ApJ...998....7M

We present results from a program of Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) 1.3 mm (Band 6) molecular line mapping of a sample of nearby, bipolar/pinched-waist, molecule-rich planetary nebulae (PNs; NGC 6302, Hubble 5, NGC 2440, NGC 6445, NGC 2899, and NGC 2818). Maps of ¹²CO(2-1) and ¹³CO(2-1) emission as well as emission lines of HCN, HNC, HCO⁺, CN, and CS-many of these detected in these PNs for the first time-reveal the molecular mass distributions, compositions, and velocity fields of the equatorial and, in some cases, polar regions of the sample PNs. In each case, the bulk of the molecular gas traces an expanding equatorial torus, with torus expansion velocities ranging from ∼15 to ∼50 km s^–1 and molecular masses from ∼0.002 to ∼0.1 M_⊙. The inferred molecular torus dynamical ages, which span the range ∼500 yr (Hb 5) to ∼11,000 yr (NGC 2818), provide support for a model wherein molecular torus ejection precedes bipolar lobe formation. Collectively, these ALMA survey results provide insight into the rapid structural evolution as well as the zones of irradiated molecular gas within bipolar PNs that are descended from relatively massive progenitors, likely residing in interacting binary systems, over ∼10 kyr of the post-asymptotic giant branch evolution of such systems.