Related papers: The impact of strong recombination on temperature …

We present results of long-slit spectroscopy in several positions of the Orion nebula. Our goal is to study the spatial distribution of a large number of nebular quantities, including line fluxes, physical conditions and ionic abundances at…

Recent observations reveal that the central star of the planetary nebula Abell 48 exhibits spectral features similar to massive nitrogen-sequence Wolf-Rayet stars. This raises a pertinent question, whether it is still a planetary nebula or…

The determination of the heavy element abundances from giant extragalactic H II regions has been generally based on collisionally excited lines. We will discuss the reasons to study the characteristics of recombination lines, and then use…

We study the density structures of planetary nebulae implied by four diagnostics that sample different regions within the nebulae: [S II] $\lambda6716/\lambda6731$, [O II] $\lambda3726/\lambda3729$, [Cl III] $\lambda5518/\lambda5538$, and…

Context: In recent years mid- and far infrared spectra of planetary nebulae have been analysed and lead to more accurate abundances. It may be expected that these better abundances lead to a better understanding of the evolution of these…

The different spatial distributions of N-bearing and O-bearing species, as is well known towards Orion~KL, is one of the long-lasting mysteries. We conducted a survey observation and chemical modeling study to investigate if the different…

We present new spectroscopic observations of 13 H II regions in the Local Group spiral galaxy M33. The regions observed range from 1 to 7 kpc in distance from the nucleus. Of the 13 H II regions observed, the [O III] 4363 Angstrom line was…

The actual value of the oxygen abundance of the metal-poor planetary nebula PN G135.9+55.9 has frequently been debated in the literature. We wanted to clarify the situation by making an improved abundance determination based on a study that…

From high-resolution spectra, chemical abundances from collisionally excited lines (CELs) and optical recombination lines (ORLs) have been determined for planetary nebulae Cn 3-1, Vy 2-2, Hu 2-1, Vy 1-2 and IC 4997, which are young and…

In this work we present a study of the strong optical collisional emission lines of Ne and Ar in an heterogeneous sample of ionized gaseous nebulae for which it is possible to derive directly the electron temperature and hence the chemical…

We present observations of planetary nebulae with the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) between 120 and 168 MHz. The images show thermal free-free emission from the nebular shells. We have determined the electron temperatures for spatially…

We discuss the role of the electron temperature in abundance determinations in ionized nebulae (planetary nebulae and giant HII regions). We show that, even when observations provide a direct estimate of Te, abundance determinations may…

We have obtained deep optical spectrophotometry of 16 planetary nebulae in M33, mostly located in the central two kpc of the galaxy, with the Subaru and Keck telescopes. We have derived electron temperatures and chemical abundances from the…

The nebular evolution is followed from the vicinity of the asymptotic-giant branch across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram until the white-dwarf domain is reached, using various central-star models coupled to different initial envelope…

Accurate chemical compositions of star-forming regions are a critical diagnostic tool to characterize the star formation history and gas flows which regulate galaxy formation. However, the abundance discrepancy factor (ADF) between…

The spectra of the planetary nebula M1-42 is reanalysed using spectral measurements made in the mid-infrared with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The aim is to determine the chemical composition of this object. We also make use of ISO, IUE and…

After becoming ionized, low-density astrophysical plasmas will begin a process of slow recombination. Models for this still have significant uncertainties. The recombination cannot normally be observed in isolation, because the ionization…

A recently generated theoretical line list of C II dielectronic recombination lines together with observational data gathered from the literature is used to investigate the electron temperature in a range of astronomical objects, mainly…

We have obtained deep optical, long-slit spectrophotometry of the Galactic HII regions M 17, NGC 3576 and of the Magellanic Cloud HII regions 30 Doradus, LMC N11B and SMC N66, recording the optical recombination lines (ORLs) of CII, NII and…

We present spectra of 14 A-type supergiants in the metal-rich spiral galaxy M83. We derive stellar parameters and metallicities, and measure a spectroscopic distance modulus m-M = 28.47 +\- 0.10 (4.9 +\- 0.2 Mpc), in agreement with other…