Accurate Oxygen Abundance of Interstellar Gas in Mrk 71 from Optical and Infrared Spectra

The heavy element content ("metallicity") of the Universe is a record of the total star formation history. Gas-phase metallicity in galaxies, as well as its evolution with time, is of particular interest as a tracer of accretion and outflow processes. However, metallicities from the widely...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-04
Main Authors: Chen, Yuguang, Jones, Tucker, Sanders, Ryan, Fadda, Dario, Sutter, Jessica, Minchin, Robert, Huntzinger, Erin, Senchyna, Peter, Stark, Daniel, Spilker, Justin, Weiner, Benjamin, Roberts-Borsani, Guido
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Bias
Deposition
Electron energy
Galaxies
Heavy elements
Infrared spectra
Interstellar gas
Metallicity
Oxygen
Radio telescopes
Star & galaxy formation
Star formation
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Summary:The heavy element content ("metallicity") of the Universe is a record of the total star formation history. Gas-phase metallicity in galaxies, as well as its evolution with time, is of particular interest as a tracer of accretion and outflow processes. However, metallicities from the widely-used electron temperature (\(T_e\)) method are typically ~2x lower than the values based on the recombination line method. This "abundance discrepancy factor" (ADF) is well known and is commonly ascribed to bias due to temperature fluctuations. We present a measurement of oxygen abundance in the nearby (3.4 Mpc) system, Mrk 71, using a combination of optical and far-IR emission lines to measure and correct for temperature fluctuation effects. Our far-IR result is inconsistent (\(> 2 \sigma\) significance) with the metallicity from recombination lines and instead indicates little to no bias in the standard \(T_e\) method, ruling out the long-standing hypothesis that the ADF is explained by temperature fluctuations for this object. Our results provide a framework to accurately measure metallicity across cosmic history, including with recent data reaching within the first billion years with JWST and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2304.09898