Metal Abundances of 12 Dwarf Irregulars from the ADBS Survey

TL;DR

This study analyzes the metal content of 12 dwarf irregular galaxies from the ADBS survey, revealing their generally low metallicity, potential gas infall effects, and identifying a notably over-enriched galaxy, contributing to understanding galaxy evolution.

Contribution

First detailed metallicity analysis of a heterogeneous, gas-rich dwarf irregular galaxy sample from the ADBS survey, highlighting deviations from typical luminosity-metallicity relations.

Findings

Most galaxies are under-abundant at given luminosity.

No strong metallicity variation within individual galaxies.

One galaxy is significantly over-enriched, indicating it is not a young galaxy.

Abstract

We have analyzed long-slit spectra of 12 dwarf irregular galaxies from the Arecibo Dual Beam Survey (ADBS). These galaxies represent a heterogeneous sample of objects detected by ADBS, but on average are relatively gas-rich, low-surface-brightness, and low-mass, thus represent a region of the galaxian population that is not commonly included in optical surveys. The metallicity-luminosity relationship for these galaxies is analyzed; the galaxies discussed in this paper appear to be under-abundant at a given luminosity when compared to a sample from the literature. We attempt to identify a "second parameter" responsible for the intrinsic scatter and apparent under-abundance of our galaxies. We do not find a definitive second parameter but note the possible indication that infall or mixing of pristine gas may be responsible. We derive oxygen abundances for multiple HII regions in many of our galaxies but do not find any strong indications of metallicity variation within the galaxies except in one case where we see variation between an isolated HII region and the rest of the galaxy. Our data set includes the galaxy with the largest known HI-to-optical size ratio, ADBS 113845+2008. Our abundance analysis of this galaxy reveals that it is strongly over-enriched compared to galaxies of similar luminosity, indicating it is not a young object and confirming the result from Cannon et. al (2009) that this galaxy appears to be intrinsically rare in the local universe.