Integral field spectroscopy of selected areas of the Bright Bar and Orion-S cloud in the Orion Nebula

TL;DR

This study uses integral field spectroscopy to analyze the ionization structure, morphology, and chemical abundances in specific regions of the Orion Nebula, revealing insights into electron densities and the abundance discrepancy problem.

Contribution

First detailed integral field spectroscopic analysis of selected Orion Nebula regions focusing on ionization fronts and chemical abundances.

Findings

Electron density and O/H ratio maps show similar structures.

Constant abundance discrepancy observed across the field.

Physical conditions do not significantly affect the abundance discrepancy.

Abstract

We present integral field spectroscopy of two selected zones in the Orion Nebula obtained with the Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrophotometer (PMAS), covering the optical spectral range from 3500 to 7200 A and with a spatial resolution of 1". The observed zones are located on the prominent Bright Bar and on the brightest area at the northeast of the Orion South cloud, both containing remarkable ionization fronts. We obtain maps of emission line fluxes and ratios, electron density and temperatures, and chemical abundances. We study the ionization structure and morphology of both fields, which ionization fronts show different inclination angles with respect to the plane of the sky. We find that the maps of electron density, O+/H+ and O/H ratios show a rather similar structure. We interpret this as produced by the strong dependence on density of the [OII] lines used to derive the O+ abundance, and that our nominal values of electron density-derived from the [SII] line ratio-may be slightly higher than the appropriate value for the O+ zone. We measure the faint recombination lines of OII in the field at the northeast of the Orion South cloud allowing us to explore the so-called abundance discrepancy problem. We find a rather constant abundance discrepancy across the field and a mean value similar to that determined in other areas of the Orion Nebula, indicating that the particular physical conditions of this ionization front do not contribute to this discrepancy.