Gas-phase Fe/O and Fe/N abundances in Star-Forming Regions. Relations between nucleosynthesis, metallicity and dust

• Published in: arXiv.org 2024-08
• Main Authors: Méndez-Delgado, J E, Kreckel, K, Esteban, C, García-Rojas, J, Carigi, L, Sander, A A C, Palla, M, Chruślińska, M, De Looze, I, Relaño, M, S A van der Giessen, Reyes-Rodríguez, E, Sánchez, S F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abundance; Correlation; Cosmic dust; Depletion; Dust; Electron energy; Galaxies; Massive stars; Metallicity; Nebulae; Nuclear fusion; Photoionization; Space telescopes; Star formation
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2408.06215

In stars, metallicity is usually traced using Fe, while in nebulae, O serves as the preferred proxy. Both elements have different nucleosynthetic origins and are not directly comparable. Additionally, in ionized nebulae, Fe is heavily depleted onto dust grains. We investigate the distribution of Fe gas abundances in a sample of 452 star-forming nebulae with \feiii~\(\lambda 4658\) detections and their relationship with O and N. Additionally, we analyze the depletion of Fe onto dust grains in photoionized environments. We homogeneously determine the chemical abundances with direct determinations of electron temperature (\(T_e\)), considering the effect of possible internal variations of this parameter. We adopt a sample of 300 Galactic stars to interpret the nebular findings. We find a moderate linear correlation (\(r=-0.59\)) between Fe/O and O/H. In turn, we report a stronger correlation (\(r=-0.80\)) between Fe/N and N/H. We interpret the tighter correlation as evidence of Fe and N being produced on similar timescales while Fe-dust depletion scales with the Fe availability. The apparently flat distribution between Fe/N and N/H in Milky Way stars supports this interpretation. We find that when 12+log(O/H)300M_{\odot}\) in these systems.