The Planetary Nebulae Population in the Nuclear Regions of M31: the
  SAURON view
  Following a first study of the central regions of M32 that illustrated the
power of integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) in detecting and measuring the [O
III]{\lambda}5007 emission of PNe against a strong stellar background, we turn
to the very nuclear PN population of M31, within 80 pc of its centre. We show
that PNe can also be found in the presence of emission from diffuse gas and
further illustrate the excellent sensitivity of IFS in detecting extragalactic
PNe through a comparison with narrowband images obtained with the Hubble Space
Telescope. We find the nuclear PNe population of M31 is only marginally
consistent with the generally adopted form of the PNe luminosity function
(PNLF). In particular, this is due to a lack of PNe with absolute magnitude
M5007 brighter than -3, which would only result from a rather unfortunate draw
from such a model PNLF. We suggest that the observed lack of bright PNe in the
nuclear regions of M31 is due to a horizontal-branch population that is more
tilted toward less massive and hotter He-burning stars, so that its progeny
consists mostly of UV-bright stars that fail to climb back up the asymptotic
giant branch (AGB) and only of few, if any, bright PNe powered by central
post-AGB stars. These results are also consistent with recent reports on a
dearth of bright post-AGB stars towards the nucleus of M31, and lend further
support to the idea that the metallicity of a stellar population has an impact
on the way the horizontal branch is populated and to the loose anticorrelation
between the strength of the UV-upturn and the specific number of PNe that is
observed in early-type galaxies. Finally, our investigation also serves to
stress the importance of considering the same spatial scales when comparing the
PNe population of galaxies with the properties of their stellar populations.
