We present deep spectrophotometry of several H ii regions in the nearby low-mass spiral galaxies NGC 300 and M33. The data have been taken with Ultraviolet–Visual Echelle Spectrograph and Optical ...System for Imaging and low-Intermediate-Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy spectrographs attached to the 8-m Very Large Telescope and 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias telescopes, respectively. We have derived precise values of the physical conditions for each object making use of several emission line-intensity ratios. In particular, we have obtained direct determinations of the electron temperature in all the observed objects. We detect pure recombination lines (RLs) of C ii and O ii in several of the H ii regions, permitting to derive their C/H and C/O ratios. We have derived the radial abundance gradient of O for each galaxy making use of collisionally excited lines (CELs) and RLs, as well as the C and N gradients using RLs and CELs, respectively. We obtain the first determination of the C/H gradient of NGC 300 and improve its determination in the case of M33. In both galaxies, the C/H gradients are steeper than those of O/H, leading to negative C/O gradients. Comparing with similar results for other spiral galaxies, we find a strong correlation between the slope of the C/H gradient and M
V
. We find that some H ii regions located close to the isophotal radius (R
25) of NGC 300 and M33 show C/O ratios more similar to those typical of dwarf galaxies than those of H ii regions in the discs of more massive spirals. This may be related to the absence of flattening of the gradients in the external parts of NGC 300 and M33. Finally, we find very similar N/H gradients in both galaxies and a fair correlation between the slope of the N/H gradient and M
V
comparing with similar data for a sample of spiral galaxies.
We present deep spectra of ring nebulae associated with Wolf–Rayet (WR) and O-type stars: NGC 6888, G2.4+1.4, RCW 58, S 308, NGC 7635 and RCW 52. The data have been taken with the 10m Gran Telescopio ...Canarias and the 6.5m Clay Telescope. We extract spectra of several apertures in some of the objects. We derive C2+ and O2+ abundances from faint recombination lines in NGC 6888 and NGC 7635, permitting to derive their C/H and C/O ratios and estimate the abundance discrepancy factor (ADF) of O2+. The ADFs are larger than the typical ones of normal H ii regions but similar to those found in the ionized gas of star-forming dwarf galaxies. We find that chemical abundances are rather homogeneous in the nebulae where we have spectra of several apertures: NGC 6888, NGC 7635 and G2.4+1.4. We obtain very high values of electron temperature in a peripheral zone of NGC 6888, finding that shock excitation can reproduce its spectral properties. We find that all the objects associated with WR stars show N enrichment. Some of them also show He enrichment and O deficiency as well as a lower Ne/O than expected, this may indicate the strong action of the ON and NeNa cycles. We have compared the chemical composition of NGC 6888, G2.4+1.4, RCW 58 and S 308 with the nucleosynthesis predicted by stellar evolution models of massive stars. We find that non-rotational models of stars of initial masses between 25 and 40 M⊙ seem to reproduce the observed abundance ratios of most of the nebulae.
Abstract
We present deep spectrophotometry of 18 H ii regions in the nearby massive spiral galaxies M 101 and M 31. We have obtained direct determinations of electron temperature in all the nebulae. ...We detect the C ii 4267 Å line in several H ii regions, permitting to derive the radial gradient of C/H in both galaxies. We also determine the radial gradients of O/H, N/O, Ne/O, S/O, Cl/O and Ar/O ratios. As in other spiral galaxies, the C/H gradients are steeper than those of O/H producing negative slopes of the C/O gradient. The scatter of the abundances of O with respect to the gradient fittings do not support the presence of significant chemical inhomogeneities across the discs of the galaxies, especially in the case of M101. We find trends in the S/O, Cl/O and Ar/O ratios as a function of O/H in M101 that can be reduced using Te indicators different from the standard ones for calculating some ionic abundances. The distribution of the N/O ratio with respect to O/H is rather flat in M31, similarly to previous findings for the Milky Way. Using the disc effective radius – Re – as a normalization parameter for comparing gradients, we find that the latest estimates of Re for the Milky Way provide an excess of metallicity in apparent contradiction with the mass-metallicity relation; a value about two times larger might solve the problem. Finally, using different abundance ratios diagrams we find that the enrichment timescales of C and N result to be fairly similar despite their different nucleosynthetic origin.
ABSTRACT
We present a reassessment of the radial abundance gradients of He, C, N, O, Ne, S, Cl, and Ar in the Milky Way using the deep optical spectra of 42 H ii regions presented in Arellano-Córdova ...et al. (2020, 2021) and Méndez-Delgado et al. (2020) exploring the impact of: (1) new distance determinations based on Gaia EDR3 parallaxes and (2) the use of Peimbert’s temperature fluctuations paradigm (t2 > 0) for deriving ionic abundances. We find that distances based on Gaia EDR3 data are more consistent with kinematic ones based on Galactic rotation curves calibrated with radio parallaxes, which give less dispersion and uncertainties than those calibrated with spectrophotometric stellar distances. The distances based on the Gaia parallaxes – DR2 or EDR3 – eliminate the internal flattening observed in previous determinations of the Galactic gradients at smaller distances than ∼7 kpc. Abundances and gradients determined assuming t2 > 0 – not only for O but also for the rest of elements – are not affected by the abundance discrepancy problem and give elemental abundances much consistent with the solar ones for most elements. We find that our radial abundance gradient of He is consistent with the most accurate estimates of the primordial He abundance. We do not find evidence of azimuthal variations in the chemical abundances of our sample. Moreover, the small dispersion in the O gradient – indicator of metallicity in photoionized regions – indicate that the gas of the H ii regions is well mixed in the sampled areas of the Galaxy.
ABSTRACT
We present optical spectra of nine Galactic H ii regions observed with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias telescope and located at Galactocentric distances (RG) from 4 to 8 kpc. The ...distances of the objects have been revised using Gaia DR2 parallaxes. We determine the electron temperature for all the nebulae, which allows a precise computation of their ionic abundances. We have included published data of an additional sample of Galactic H ii regions, providing a final data set of 42 objects. The shape of the radial gradients of O/H and N/H is linear and constant, discarding any substantial change of the slope, at least for RG between 4 and 17 kpc. The small dispersion of the O/H and N/H values with respect to the computed gradients imply the absence of significant azimuthal variations of the chemical abundances, at least in the quadrant covered by our observations. We find an almost flat N/O versus O/H diagram relation. This result is not observed in other nearby spiral galaxies except M31. Finally, we compare our computed gradients with those obtained using far-infrared (FIR) spectra. We confirm the significant offset in the N/O distribution between the optical and FIR observations. Possible explanations involve ionization correction factors and the strong dependence on density of the abundance determinations based on FIR lines.
We present deep echelle spectrophotometry of the brightest emission-line knots of the star-forming galaxies He 2−10, Mrk 1271, NGC 3125, NGC 5408, POX 4, SDSS J1253−0312, Tol 1457−262, Tol 1924−416 ...and the H ii region Hubble V in the Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 6822. The data have been taken with the Very Large Telescope Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph in the 3100–10420 Å range. We determine electron densities and temperatures of the ionized gas from several emission-line intensity ratios for all the objects. We derive the ionic abundances of C2+ and/or O2+ from faint pure recombination lines in several of the objects, permitting to derive their C/H and C/O ratios. We have explored the chemical evolution at low metallicities analysing the C/O versus O/H, C/O versus N/O and C/N versus O/H relations for Galactic and extragalactic H ii regions and comparing with results for Galactic halo stars and damped Lyα systems. We find that H ii regions in star-forming dwarf galaxies occupy a different locus in the C/O versus O/H diagram than those belonging to the inner discs of spiral galaxies, indicating their different chemical evolution histories, and that the bulk of C in the most metal-poor extragalactic H ii regions should have the same origin than in halo stars. The comparison between the C/O ratios in H ii regions and in stars of the Galactic thick and thin discs seems to give arguments to support the merging scenario for the origin of the Galactic thick disc. Finally, we find an apparent coupling between C and N enrichment at the usual metallicities determined for H ii regions and that this coupling breaks in very low metallicity objects.
Two bacterial strains able to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) from a wide variety of pure carbon sources (dextrose, xylose, sucrose, lactose and glycerol) were isolated from forest soils and ...identified as Achromobacter mucicolens and Stenotrophomonas rhizophila. Achromobacter mucicolens also produced poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) from different wastes (cheese whey, molasses, agave bagasse hydrolysate, nejayote and mango waste pulp). Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, produced the copolymer poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐3‐hydroxyvalerate) (PHB‐co‐HV) from glycerol (7·7 mol% of HV), and from sucrose with addition of propionic or valeric acid (4·5 and 25 mol% of HV, respectively). The copolymers presented a lower melting point (145, 156 and 127°C) and crystallinity (23, 26 and 16%) than PHB. The maximum biopolymer accumulation (PHB) for each strain growing in pure carbon source was as follows: 31·3 g per 100 g dry cell weight (DCW) for A. mucicolens from xylose; and 13·7 g per 100 g DCW for S. rhizophila from sucrose. Regarding the waste carbon sources, the highest PHB accumulation was obtained from agave bagasse hydrolysate (20·4 g per 100 g DCW) by A. mucicolens. The molecular weights of the biopolymers obtained ranged from 200 to 741 kDa.
Significance and Impact of the Study
The economic cost of the carbon source for the culture of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs)‐producing microorganisms is one of the main process limitations. Therefore, it is vital to find versatile microorganisms able to grow and to accumulate homo and copolymers of PHAs from low‐cost substrates. In this research, we report two bacterial strains that produce poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate), poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐3‐hydroxyvalerate) or both from at least five pure and five waste carbon sources. These results, by such bacterial strains have not been reported, especially the production of copolymer from glycerol without addition of precursors by Stenotrophomonas rhizophila and the production of PHB from xylose and agave bagasse hydrolysate by Achromobacter mucicolens.
Significance and Impact of the Study: The economic cost of the carbon source for the culture of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs)‐producing microorganisms is one of the main process limitations. Therefore, it is vital to find versatile microorganisms able to grow and to accumulate homo and copolymers of PHAs from low‐cost substrates. In this research, we report two bacterial strains that produce poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate), poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐3‐hydroxyvalerate) or both from at least five pure and five waste carbon sources. These results, by such bacterial strains have not been reported, especially the production of copolymer from glycerol without addition of precursors by Stenotrophomonas rhizophila and the production of PHB from xylose and agave bagasse hydrolysate by Achromobacter mucicolens.
ABSTRACT
We analyse the physical conditions and chemical composition of the photoionized Herbig–Haro object HH 514, which emerges from the protoplanetary disc (proplyd) 170-337 in the core of the ...Orion Nebula. We use high-spectral resolution spectroscopy from Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope and IFU-spectra from MEGARA at the Gran Telescopio de Canarias. We observe two components of HH 514, the jet base and a knot, with $n_{\rm e}= (2.3 \pm 0.1) \times 10^5 \rm{cm}^{-3}$ and $n_{\rm e}= (7 \pm 1) \times 10^4 \rm{ cm}^{-3}$, respectively, both with Te ≈ 9000 K. We show that the chemical composition of HH 514 is consistent with that of the Orion Nebula, except for Fe, Ni, and S, which show higher abundances. The enhanced abundances of Fe and Ni observed in HH objects compared with the general interstellar medium are usually interpreted as destruction of dust grains. The observed sulphur overabundance (more than two times solar) is challenging to explain since the proplyd photoevaporation flow from the same disc shows normal sulphur abundance. If the aforementioned S-overabundance is due to dust destruction, the formation of sulfides and/or other S-bearing dust reservoirs may be linked to planet formation processes in proplyds, which filter large sulfide dust grains during the accretion of matter from the disc to the central star. We also show that published kinematics of molecular emission close to the central star are not consistent with either a disc perpendicular to the optical jet, or with an outflow that is aligned with it.
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