The S2N2 metallicity calibrator and the abundance gradient of M33

Viironen, K.; Delgado-Inglada, G.; Mampaso, A.; Magrini, L.; Corradi, R. L. M.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 381, Issue 4, pp. 1719-1726.

Advertised on:
11
2007
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
25
Refereed citations
24
Description
We introduce the log(Hα/[SII]λλ6717+6731) versus log(Hα/[NII]λ6583) (S2N2) diagnostic diagram as a metallicity and ionization parameter indicator for HII regions in external galaxies. The location of HII regions in the S2N2 diagram was studied both empirically and theoretically. We found that, for a wide range of metallicities, the S2N2 diagram gives single-valued results in the metallicity-ionization parameter plane. We demonstrate that the S2N2 diagram is a powerful tool to estimate metallicities of high-redshift (z ~ 2) HII galaxies. Finally, we derive the metallicity for 76 HII regions in M33 from the S2N2 diagram and calculate an O/H abundance gradient for this galaxy of -0.05 (+/-0.01) dex kpc-1.