Emission lines of evolving HII regions

DOI

We build, as far as theory will permit, self-consistent model HII regions around central clusters of aging stars. These produce strong emission line diagnostics applicable to either individual HII regions in galaxies or to the integrated emission line spectra of disk or starburst galaxies. The models assume that the expansion and internal pressure of individual HII regions is driven by the net input of mechanical energy from the central cluster, be it through winds or supernova events. This eliminates the ionization parameter as a free variable, replacing it with a parameter that depends on the ratio of the cluster mass to the pressure in the surrounding interstellar medium. These models explain why HII regions with low abundances have high excitation and demonstrate that at least part of the warm ionized medium is the result of overlapping faint, old, large, and low-pressure HII regions. We present line ratios (at both optical and IR wavelengths) that provide reliable abundance diagnostics for both single HII regions or for integrated galaxy spectra, and we find a number that can be used to estimate the mean age of the cluster stars exciting individual HII regions.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.21670177
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/167/177
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJS/167/177
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/167/177
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/167/177
Provenance
Creator Dopita M.A.; Fischera J.; Sutherland R.S.; Kewley L.J.; Leitherer C.,Tuffs R.J.; Popescu C.C.; van Breugel W.; Groves B.A.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2008
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Interstellar medium; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics