No Arabic abstract
We study the presence of low intensity high velocity components, which we have termed wing features in the integrated Halpha emission line profiles of the HII region populations of the spiral barred galaxies NGC 1530, NGC 3359 and NGC 6951. We find that more than a third of the HII region line profiles in each galaxy show these components. The highest fraction is obtained in the galaxy whose line profiles show the best S:N, which suggests that wing features of this type may well exist in most, if not all, HII region line profiles. Applying selection criteria to the wing features, we obtain a sample of HII regions with clearly defined high velocity components in their profiles. Deconvolution of a representative sample of the line profiles eliminates any doubt that the wing features could possibly be due to instrumental effects. We present an analysis of the high velocity low intensity features fitting them with Gaussian functions; the emission measures, central velocities and velocity dispersions for the red and blue features take similar values. We interpret the features as signatures of expanding shells inside the HII regions. Up to a shell radius of R(shell)~0.2R(reg), the stellar winds from the central ionizing stars appear to satisfy the energy and momentum requirements for the formation and driving the shell. Several examples of the most luminous HII regions show that the shells appear to have larger radii; in these cases additional mechanisms may well be needed to explain the kinetic energies and momenta of the shells.
We compare the accuracy of various methods for determining the transfer of the diffuse Lyman continuum in HII regions, by comparing them with a high-resolution discrete-ordinate integration. We use these results to suggest how, in multidimensional dynamical simulations, the diffuse field may be treated with acceptable accuracy without requiring detailed transport solutions. The angular distribution of the diffuse field derived from the numerical integration provides insight into the likely effects of the diffuse field for various material distributions.
Stellar feedback plays a fundamental role in shaping the evolution of galaxies. Here we explore the use of ionised gas kinematics in young, bipolar H II regions as a probe of early feedback in these star-forming environments. We have undertaken a multiwavelength study of a young, bipolar H II region in the Galactic disc, G$316.81-0.06$, which lies at the centre of a massive ($sim10^3$ M$_{odot}$) infrared-dark cloud filament. It is still accreting molecular gas as well as driving a $sim 0.2$ pc ionised gas outflow perpendicular to the filament. Intriguingly, we observe a large velocity gradient ($47.81 pm 3.21$ km s$^{-1}$ pc$^{-1}$) across the ionised gas in a direction perpendicular to the outflow. This kinematic signature of the ionised gas shows a reasonable correspondence with the simulations of young H II regions. Based on a qualitative comparison between our observations and these simulations, we put forward a possible explanation for the velocity gradients observed in G$316.81-0.06$. If the velocity gradient perpendicular to the outflow is caused by rotation of the ionised gas, then we infer that this rotation is a direct result of the initial net angular momentum in the natal molecular cloud. If this explanation is correct, this kinematic signature should be common in other young (bipolar) H II regions. We suggest that further quantitative analysis of the ionised gas kinematics of young H II regions, combined with additional simulations, should improve our understanding of feedback at these early stages.
Sgr B1 is a luminous H II region in the Galactic Center immediately next to the massive star-forming giant molecular cloud Sgr B2 and apparently connected to it from their similar radial velocities. In 2018 we showed from SOFIA FIFI-LS observations of the [O III] 52 and 88 micron lines that there is no central exciting star cluster and that the ionizing stars must be widely spread throughout the region. Here we present SOFIA FIFI-LS observations of the [O I] 146 and [C II] 158 micron lines formed in the surrounding photodissociation regions (PDRs). We find that these lines correlate neither with each other nor with the [O III] lines although together they correlate better with the 70 micron Herschel PACS images from Hi-GAL. We infer from this that Sgr B1 consists of a number of smaller H II regions plus their associated PDRs, some seen face-on and the others seen more or less edge-on. We used the PDR Toolbox to estimate densities and the far-ultraviolet intensities exciting the PDRs. Using models computed with Cloudy, we demonstrate possible appearances of edge-on PDRs and show that the density difference between the PDR densities and the electron densities estimated from the [O III] line ratios is incompatible with pressure equilibrium unless there is a substantial pressure contribution from either turbulence or magnetic field or both. We likewise conclude that the hot stars exciting Sgr B1 are widely spaced throughout the region at substantial distances from the gas with no evidence of current massive star formation.
We present a near infrared study of the stellar content of 35 H,{sc{ii}} regions in the Galactic plane. In this work, we have used the near infrared domain $J-$, $H-$ and $K_{s}-$ band color images to visually inspect the sample. Also, color-color and color-magnitude diagrams were used to indicate ionizing star candidates, as well as, the presence of young stellar objects such as classical TTauri Stars (CTTS) and massive young stellar objects (MYSOs). We have obtained {it Spitzer} IRAC images for each region to help further characterize them. {it Spitzer} and near infrared morphology to place each cluster in an evolutionary phase of development. {it Spitzer} photometry was also used to classify the MYSOs. Comparison of the main sequence in color-magnitude diagrams to each observed cluster was used to infer whether or not the cluster kinematic distance is consistent with brightnesses of the stellar sources. We find qualitative agreement for a dozen of the regions, but about half the regions have near infrared photometry that suggests they may be closer than the kinematic distance. A significant fraction of these already have spectrophotometric parallaxes which support smaller distances. These discrepancies between kinematic and spectrophotometric distances are not due to the spectrophotometric methodologies, since independent non-kinematic measurements are in agreement with the spectrophotometric results. For instance, trigonometric parallaxes of star-forming regions were collected from the literature and show the same effect of smaller distances when compared to the kinematic results. In our sample of H,{sc{ii}} regions, most of the clusters are evident in the near infrared images. Finally, it is possible to distinguish among qualitative evolutionary stages for these objects.
Medium-resolution spectra from 3650 angstroms to 10,000 angstroms are presented for 96 giant H II regions distributed in 20 spiral galaxies. We have calculated two separate grids of photoionization models, adopting single-star atmospheres (Kurucz) and star clusters synthesized with different Initial Mass Functions (IMFs) as ionizing sources. Additional models were computed with more recent non-LTE stellar atmospheres. We use the radiation softness parameter eta of Vilchez and Pagel to test for a metallicity dependence of the effective temperatures of the ionizing stars. Our results are consistent with a significant decrease in mean stellar temperatures of the ionizing stars with increasing metallicity. The magnitude of the effect, combined with the behavior of the HeI 5876/Hbeta ratio, suggest a smaller upper mass limit for star formation at abundances higher than solar, even when considering the effects of metallicity on stellar evolution and atmospheric line blanketing. However, the exact magnitudes of the stellar temperature and IMF variations are dependent on the choice of stellar atmosphere and evolution models used, as well as on uncertainties in the nebular abundance scale at high metallicities. Our results also constrain the systematic behavior of the ionization parameter and the N/O ratio in extragalactic H II regions. The observed spectral sequences are inconsistent with current stellar evolution models which predict a luminous, hot W-R stellar population in evolved H II regions older than 2-3 Myr. This suggests either that the hardness of the emitted Lyman continuum spectrum has been overestimated in the models, or that some mechanism disrupts the H II regions before the W-R phases become important.