A comparison of the time variation of radial abundance gradients from planetary nebulae and open clusters

Abstract

The temporal behaviour of the radial abundance gradients has important consequences on models for the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We present a comparison of the time variation of the abundance gradients in the Milky Way disk as determined from a sample of planetary nebulae and open clusters. We conclude that the [Fe/H] gradients as measured in open cluster stars strongly support the time flattening of the abundance gradient as recently determined from O/H measurements in planetary nebulae. We estimate the average flattening rate in the time interval 10 Myr < t < 5 Gyr as roughly 0.005 dex kpc-1 Gyr-1.