NEW STRONG-LINE ABUNDANCE DIAGNOSTICS FOR H II REGIONS: EFFECTS OF κ-DISTRIBUTED ELECTRON ENERGIES AND NEW ATOMIC DATA

被引:264
作者
Dopita, Michael A. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Sutherland, Ralph S. [1 ]
Nicholls, David C. [1 ]
Kewley, Lisa J. [1 ,3 ]
Vogt, Frederic P. A. [1 ]
机构
[1] Australian Natl Univ, Res Sch Astron & Astrophys, Weston, ACT 2611, Australia
[2] King Abdulaziz Univ, Dept Astron, Jeddah 21413, Saudi Arabia
[3] Univ Hawaii, Inst Astron, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA
关键词
atomic data; atomic processes; H II regions; ISM: abundances; plasmas; EFFECTIVE COLLISION STRENGTHS; PAULI TRANSITION-PROBABILITIES; GALACTIC HII-REGIONS; IMPACT-EXCITATION; STARBURST GALAXIES; CHEMICAL-COMPOSITION; OXYGEN ABUNDANCES; EMISSION-LINES; STAR-FORMATION; METALLICITY EVOLUTION;
D O I
10.1088/0067-0049/208/1/10
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
Recently, Nicholls et al., inspired by in situ observations of solar system astrophysical plasmas, suggested that the electrons in H II regions are characterized by a kappa-distribution of energies rather than a simple Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Here, we have collected together new atomic data within a modified photoionization code to explore the effects of both the new atomic data and the kappa-distribution on the strong-line techniques used to determine chemical abundances in H II regions. By comparing the recombination temperatures (T-rec) with the forbidden line temperatures (T-FL), we conclude that kappa similar to 20. While representing only a mild deviation from equilibrium, this result is sufficient to strongly influence abundances determined using methods that depend on measurements of the electron temperature from forbidden lines. We present a number of new emission line ratio diagnostics that cleanly separate the two parameters determining the optical spectrum of H II regions-the ionization parameter q or U and the chemical abundance, 12+log(O/H). An automated code to extract these parameters is presented. Using the homogeneous data set from van Zee et al., we find self-consistent results between all of these different diagnostics. The systematic errors between different line ratio diagnostics are much smaller than those found in the earlier strong-line work. Overall, the effect of the kappa-distribution on the strong-line abundances derived solely on the basis of theoretical models is rather small.
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页数:26
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