Related papers: Discrepancies between the [OIII] and [SIII] Temper…
HII region electron temperatures are a critical ingredient in metallicity determinations and recent observations reveal systematic variations in the temperatures measured using different ions. We present electron temperatures ($T_e$)…
Photoionization models frequently assume constant temperature or density within HII regions. We investigate this assumption by measuring the detailed temperature and density structures of four HII regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud and…
The electron temperatures of high-metallicity (12+log(O/H) > 8.2) HII regions have been studied. The empirical ff relations which express the nebular-to- auroral [OIII] line ratio Q_3,O (as well as the nebular-to-auroral [OII] line ratio…
The measurement of electron temperatures and metallicities in H ii regions and Planetary Nebulae (PNe) has-for several decades-presented a problem: results obtained using different techniques disagree. What it worse, they disagree…
(Abridged) We use high S/N spectra of 20 HII regions in the giant spiral galaxy M101 to derive electron temperatures for the HII regions and robust metal abundances over radii R = 0.19-1.25 Ro (6-41 kpc). We compare the consistency of…
The existence and origin of large spatial temperature fluctuations in HII regions and planetary nebulae are assumed to explain the differences between the heavy element abundances inferred from collisionally excited and recombination lines,…
We report measurements of the electron temperature at about a dozen locations in the extended emission-line regions of five active (Seyfert and radio) galaxies. Temperatures (T_{[OIII]} and T_{[NII]}) have been determined from both the…
HII regions, ionized nebulae where massive star formation has taken place, exhibit a wealth of emission lines that are the fundamental basis for estimating the chemical composition of the Universe. For more than 80 years, a discrepancy of…
Spectra of high-metallicity (12+log(O/H) > 8.2) HII regions where oxygen auroral lines are measurable in both the O+ and O++ zones, have been extracted from the Data Release 6 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our final sample…
We present the results of an exhaustive study of the ionized gas in NGC 588, a giant H II region in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. This analysis uses a high number of diagnostics in the optical and infrared ranges. Four temperature…
The distribution of metals in the Galaxy provides important information about galaxy formation and evolution. HII regions are the most luminous objects in the Milky Way at mid-infrared to radio wavelengths and can be seen across the entire…
The classic optical nebular diagnostics [N II], [O II], [O III], [S II], [S III], and [Ar III] are employed to search for evidence of non-Maxwellian electron distributions, namely $\kappa$ distributions, in a sample of well-observed…
The problem of determination of the electron temperature t_2 in the OII zone of high-metallicity HII region was examined. It was shown that the ratio of nebular to auroral nitrogen line intensities, which is an indicator of the electron…
There is evidence for temperature fluctuations in Planetary Nebulae and in Galactic HII regions. If such fluctuations occur in the low-metallicity, extragalactic HII regions used to probe the primordial helium abundance, the derived 4He…
Using ab-initio photoionization models of giant HII regions, we test methods for abundance determinations based on a direct measurement of the electron temperature, now possible even for moderate to high-metallicity objects. We find that,…
Extensive photoionization model grids are computed for single star HII regions using stellar atmosphere models from the WM-basic code. Mid-IR emission line intensities are predicted and diagnostic diagrams of [NeIII]/[NeII] and [SIV]/[SIII]…
The physics of recombination lines (RLs) in the HeI singlet system is expected to be relatively simple, supported by accurate atomic models. We examine the intensities of HeI singlets $\lambda \lambda$3614, 3965, 5016, 6678, 7281 and the…
Spatially resolved studies of star forming regions show that the assumption of spherical geometry is not realistic in most cases, with a major complication posed by the gas being ionised by multiple non-centrally located stars or star…
Aims. The main objective of this article is to provide a simple physical framework with permits a quantitative comparison of measurements of the temperature fluctuations in the ionized interstellar medium with possible mechanisms which can…
Observations of infrared fine-structure lines provide direct information on the metallicity and ionization structure of HII regions and indirectly on the hardness of the radiation field ionizing these nebulae. We have analyzed a sample of…