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Register a new userBOND: Bayesian Oxygen and Nitrogen abundance Determinations in giant H II regions using strong and semi-strong lines
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N. Vale Asari
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We present BOND, a Bayesian code to simultaneously derive oxygen and nitrogen abundances in giant H II regions. It compares observed emission lines to a grid of photoionization models without assuming any relation between O/H and N/O. Our grid spans a wide range in O/H, N/O and ionization parameter U, and covers different starburst ages and nebular geometries. Varying starburst ages accounts for variations in the ionizing radiation field hardness, which arise due to the ageing of H II regions or the stochastic sampling of the initial mass function. All previous approaches assume a strict relation between the ionizing field and metallicity. The other novelty is extracting information on the nebular physics from semi-strong emission lines. While strong lines ratios alone ([O III]/Hbeta, [O II]/Hbeta and [N II]/Hbeta) lead to multiple O/H solutions, the simultaneous use of [Ar III]/[Ne III] allows one to decide whether an H II region is of high or low metallicity. Adding He I/Hbeta pins down the hardness of the radiation field. We apply our method to H II regions and blue compact dwarf galaxies, and find that the resulting N/O vs O/H relation is as scattered as the one obtained from the temperature-based method. As in previous strong-line methods calibrated on photoionization models, the BOND O/H values are generally higher than temperature-based ones, which might indicate the presence of temperature fluctuations or kappa distributions in real nebulae, or a too soft ionizing radiation field in the models.
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We present a quick-start guide to BOND, a statistical method to derive oxygen and nitrogen abundances in H II regions. BOND compares a set of carefully selected strong and semistrong emission lines to a grid photoionization models. The first novelty, in comparison to other statistical methods, is that BOND relies on the [Ar III]/[Ne III] emission line ratio to break the oxygen abundance bimodality. In doing so, we can measure oxygen and nitrogen abundances without assuming any a priori relation between N/O and O/H. The second novelty is that BOND takes into account changes in the hardness of the ionizing radiation field, which can come about due to the ageing of H II regions or the stochastically sampling of the IMF. We use the emission line ratio He I/Hb, in addition to commonly used strong lines, to constrain the hardness of the ionizing radiation field. Finally, we also stress the pragmatic considerations behind our Bayesian inference.
We present results from integral field optical spectroscopy with the Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrograph of the Herbig-Haro (HH) object HH 204, with a spatial sampling of 1 x 1 arcsec^2. We have obtained maps of different emission lines, physical conditions and ionic abundances from collisionally excited lines. The ionization structure of the object indicates that the head of the bow shock is optically thick and has developed a trapped ionization front. The density at the head is at least five times larger than in the background ionized gas. We discover a narrow arc of high T_e([N II]) values delineating the southeast edge of the head. The temperature in this zone is about 1,000 K higher than in the rest of the field and should correspond to a shock-heated zone at the leading working surface of the gas flow. This is the first time this kind of feature is observed in a photoionized HH object. We find that the O^+ and O abundance maps show anomalous values at separate areas of the bow shock probably due to: a) overestimation of the collisional de-excitation effects of the [O II] lines in the compressed gas at the head of the bow shock, and b) the use of a too high T_e([N II]) at the area of the leading working surface of the flow.
This paper aims at providing aperture corrections for emission lines in a sample of spiral galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA) database. In particular, we explore the behavior of the log([OIII]5007/Hbeta)/([NII]6583/Halpha) (O3N2) and log[NII]6583/Halpha (N2) flux ratios since they are closely connected to different empirical calibrations of the oxygen abundances in star forming galaxies. We compute median growth curves of Halpha, Halpha/Hbeta, O3N2 and N2 up to 2.5R_50 and 1.5 disk R_eff. The growth curves simulate the effect of observing galaxies through apertures of varying radii. The median growth curve of the Halpha/Hbeta ratio monotonically decreases from the center towards larger radii, showing for small apertures a maximum value of ~10% larger than the integrated one. The median growth curve of N2 shows a similar behavior, decreasing from the center towards larger radii. No strong dependence is seen with the inclination, morphological type and stellar mass for these growth curves. Finally, the median growth curve of O3N2 increases monotonically with radius. However, at small radii it shows systematically higher values for galaxies of earlier morphological types and for high stellar mass galaxies. Applying our aperture corrections to a sample of galaxies from the SDSS survey at 0.02<=z<=0.3 shows that the average difference between fiber-based and aperture corrected oxygen abundances, for different galaxy stellar mass and redshift ranges, reaches typically to ~11%, depending on the abundance calibration used. This average difference is found to be systematically biased, though still within the typical uncertainties of oxygen abundances derived from empirical calibrations. Caution must be exercised when using observations of galaxies for small radii (e.g. below 0.5R_eff) given the high dispersion shown around the median growth curves.
We employed observational spectroscopic data of star-forming regions compiled from the literature and photoionization models to analyse the neon ionic abundances obtained using both optical and mid-infrared emission-lines. Comparing Ne++/H+ ionic abundances from distinct methods, we found that, in average, the abundances obtained via IR emission-lines are higher than those obtained via optical lines by a factor of 4. Photoionization models with abundance variations along the radius of the hypothetical nebula provide a possible explanation for a large part of the difference between ionic abundances via optical and infrared emission-lines. Ionization Correction Factor (ICF) for the neon is obtained from direct determinations of ionic fractions using infrared emission-lines. A constant Ne/O ratio (logNe/O approx -0.70) for a large range of metallicity, independently of the ICF used to compute the neon total abundance is derived.
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.
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