Effective temperature of ionizing stars of extragalactic HII regions -- II: nebular parameter relations based on CALIFA data


Abstract in English

We calculate the effective temperature ($T_{rm eff}$) of ionizing star(s), oxygen abundance of the gas phase $(rm O/H)$, and the ionization parameter $U$ for a sample of H,{sc ii} regions located in the disks of 59 spiral galaxies in the 0.005 < z < 0.03 redshift range. We use spectroscopic data taken from the CALIFA data release 3 (DR3) and theoretical (for $T_{rm eff}$ and $U$) and empirical (for O/H) calibrations based on strong emission-lines. We consider spatial distribution and radial gradients of those parameters in each galactic disk for the objects in our sample. Most of the galaxies in our sample ($sim70$ %) shows positive $T_{rm eff}$ radial gradients even though some them exhibit negative or flat ones. The median value of the $T_{rm eff}$ radial gradient is 0.762 kK/$R_{25}$. We find that radial gradients of both $log U$ and $T_{rm eff}$ depend on the oxygen abundance gradient, in the sense that the gradient of $log U$ increases as $log(rm O/H)$ gradient increases while there is an anti-correlation between the gradient of $T_{rm eff}$ and the oxygen abundance gradient. Moreover, galaxies with flat oxygen abundance gradients tend to have flat $log U$ and $T_{rm eff}$ gradients as well. Although our results are in agreement with the idea of the existence of positive $T_{rm eff}$ gradients along the disk of the majority of spiral galaxies, this seems not to be an universal property for these objects.

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