Related papers: The Evolution of Helium and Hydrogen Ionization Co…
Helium and hydrogen recombination lines observed in low-metallicity, extragalactic H II regions provide the data used to infer the primordial helium mass fraction, Y_P. The ionization corrections for unseen neutral helium (or hydrogen) are…
The primordial helium abundance Y_p is commonly inferred from abundance determinations in low-metallicity extragalactic HII-regions. Such determinations may be subject to systematic uncertainties that are investigated here. Particular…
We present results from photoionization models of low-metallicity HII regions. These nebulae form the basis for measuring the primordial helium abundance. Our models show that the helium ionization correction factor (ICF) can be…
We provide new ionization correction factors (ICFs) for carbon, nitrogen, neon, sulfur, chlorine, and argon in giant H II regions. The ICFs were computed using the most representative photoionization models from a large initial grid. The…
We compute a large grid of photoionization models that covers a wide range of physical parameters and is representative of most of the observed PNe. Using this grid, we derive new formulae for the ionization correction factors (ICFs) of He,…
The dependences on z of fractional number densities of H+ and He+ ions are calculated with a proper allowance for two-photon decays of upper levels of hydrogen and parahelium and radiative transfer in intercombination line 2 3P_1 --> 1 1S_0…
Studies measuring the chemical abundances of the neutral gas in star-forming galaxies (SFGs) require ionization correction factors (ICFs) to accurately measure their metal contents. In the work presented here we calculate newly improved…
We present observations and models of the behaviour of the HI and HeI lines between 1.6 and 2.2um in a small sample of compact HII regions. As in our previous papers on planetary nebulae, we find that the `pure' 1.7007um 4^3D-3^3P and…
Observations of metal-poor extragalactic H II regions allow the determination of the primordial helium abundance, Y_p. The He I emissivities are the foundation of the model of the H II region's emission. Porter, Ferland, Storey, & Detisch…
This paper outlines a way to determine the ICF using only infrared data. We identify four line pairs, [NeIII] 36$\micron$/[NeII] 12.8$\micron$, [NeIII]~15.6$\micron$ /[NeII] 12.8$\micron$, [ArIII] 9$\micron$/[ArII] 6.9$\micron$, and [ArIII]…
We present measurements of the singly ionized helium to hydrogen ratio ($n_{He^+}/n_{H^+}$) toward diffuse gas surrounding three Ultra-Compact HII (UCHII ) regions: G10.15-0.34, G23.46-0.20 \& G29.96-0.02. We observe radio recombination…
We measure the effective optical depth of HeII Ly\alpha\ absorption \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$ at 2.3<z<3.5 in 17 UV-transmitting quasars observed with UV spectrographs on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The median \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$…
The radiation background above the ionization edge of HeII varies strongly during and after helium reionization, because the attenuation length of such photons is relatively short (<40 Mpc) and because the ionizing sources (quasars) are…
Connecting the gas in HII regions to the underlying source of the ionizing radiation can help us constrain the physical processes of stellar feedback and how HII regions evolve over time. With PHANGS$\unicode{x2013}$MUSE we detect nearly…
We report on measurements of the 4He abundance toward the outer Galaxy HII region S206 with the NRAO Green Bank telescope. Observations of hydrogen and helium radio recombination lines between 8-10 GHz were made toward the peak radio…
The HII regions are all studied employing the same general prescriptions, despite the possible influence of their environment in their star formation processes. Through the analysis of two samples of 725 inner and 671 outer disk HII region…
(Abridged) We reassess the alpha-element abundance ratios (Ne/O, S/O, Ar/O) with respect to metallicity in ~1000 spectra of Galactic and extragalactic HII regions and star-forming galaxies (SFGs) of the local Universe. Using the DEep…
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…
Observed variations in the HII region luminosity function (HII LF) seen in spiral arm vs. interarm regions, and different galactic Hubble type, can be explained simply by evolutionary effects and maximum number of ionizing stars per…
Helium is the second most common chemical species in the Universe. The study of helium abundance has the potential to unravel the chemical evolution of and within galaxies. In this study, we provide an empirical calibration for the singly…