The hot white dwarf in the peculiar binary nucleus of the planetary nebula EGB 6

EGB 6 is an extended, faint old planetary nebula (PN) with an enigmatic nucleus. The central star (PG 0950 + 139) is a hot DAOZ-type white dwarf (WD). An unresolved, compact emission knot was discovered to be located 0.'' 00 166 away from the WD and it was shown to be centered around a dust-enshrouded low-luminosity star. It was argued that the dust disk and evaporated gas (photoionized by the hot WD) around the companion are remnants of a disk formed by wind material captured from the WD progenitor when it was an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star. In this paper, we assess the hot WD to determine its atmospheric and stellar parameters. We performed a model-atmosphere analysis of ultraviolet (UV) and optical spectra. We found T-eff = 105 000 +/- 5000 K, log g = 7.4 +/- 0.4, and a solar helium abundance (He = 0 : 25 +/- 0 : 1, mass fraction). We measured the abundances of ten more species (C, N, O, F, Si, P, S, Ar, Fe, Ni) and found essentially solar abundance values, indicating that radiation-driven wind mass-loss, with a theoretical rate of log((M) over dot/M-circle dot/yr) = 11.0(-0.8)(+1.1), prevents the gravitational separation of elements in the photosphere. The WD has a mass of M/M-circle dot = 0.58(-0.04)(+0.12) and its post-AGB age (log(t(evol)/yr = 3.60(-0.09)(+1.26))) is compatible with the PN kinematical age of log(t(PN/)yr = 4.2). In addition, we examined the UV spectrum of the hot nucleus of a similar object with a compact emission region, Tol 26 (PN G298.0 + 34.8), and found that it is a slightly cooler DAOZ WD (Teff approximate to 85 000 K), but this WD shows signatures of gravitational settling of heavy elements.