Abundance determination from global emission-line SDSS spectra: exploring objects with high N/O ratios

TL;DR

This study compares different methods for determining oxygen and nitrogen abundances in SDSS galaxy spectra, revealing that the Te method may overestimate N/O ratios in composite nebulae due to physical property variations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the Te method can underestimate oxygen abundance in composite nebulae, leading to artificially high N/O ratios, and validates the ON and NS calibrations for such spectra.

Findings

Te method underestimates oxygen abundance in composite nebulae.

High N/O ratios from Te method may be artifacts, not real.

ON and NS calibrations provide reliable abundances within 0.2 dex.

Abstract

We have compared the oxygen and nitrogen abundances derived from global emission-line SDSS spectra of galaxies using (1) the Te method and (2) two recent strong line calibrations: the ON and NS calibrations. Using the Te method, anomously high N/O abundances ratios have been found in some SDSS galaxies. To investigate this, we have Monte Carlo simulated the global spectra of composite nebulae by a mix of spectra of individual components, based on spectra of well-studied HII regions in nearby galaxies. We found that the Te method results in an underestimated oxygen abundance (and hence in an overestimated nitrogen-to-oxygen ratio) if HII regions with different physical properties contribute to the global spectrum of composite nebulae. This effect is somewhat similar to the small-scale temperature fluctuations in HII regions discussed by Peimbert. Our work thus suggests that the high Te-based N/O abundances ratios found in SDSS galaxies may not be real. However, such an effect is not expected to be present in dwarf galaxies since they have generally an uniform chemical composition. The ON and NS calibrations give O and N abundances in composite nebulae which agree with the mean luminosity-weighted abundances of their components to within 0.2 dex.