CHAOS I: Direct Chemical Abundances for HII Regions in NGC 628

TL;DR

This study uses the LBT and MODS to measure direct chemical abundances in 62 HII regions of NGC 628, revealing temperature discrepancies and well-mixed alpha-element ratios, with implications for understanding galactic chemical uniformity.

Contribution

First direct measurement of multiple auroral lines in HII regions of NGC 628, highlighting temperature discrepancies and providing detailed abundance gradients.

Findings

Strong correlation between [SIII] and [NII] temperatures.

Large discrepancies in [OII] and [OIII] temperature measurements.

Constant alpha-element ratios across the galaxy.

Abstract

The CHemical Abundances of Spirals (CHAOS) project leverages the combined power of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) with the broad spectral range and sensitivity of the Multi Object Double Spectrograph (MODS) to measure "direct" abundances in large samples of HII regions in spiral galaxies. We present LBT MODS observations of 62 HII regions in the nearby NGC628. We measure one or more auroral lines ([OIII] 4363, [NII] 5755, [SIII] 6312, or [OII] 7320,7330) in a large number of HII regions (40). Comparing derived temperatures from multiple auroral line measurements, we find: a strong correlation between temperatures based on [SIII] and [NII]; and large discrepancies for some temperatures based on [OII] and [OIII]. These trends are consistent with other observations in the literature, yet, given the widespread use and acceptance of [OIII] as a temperature determinant, the magnitude of the T[OIII] discrepancies still came as a surprise. Based on these results, we conduct a uniform abundance analysis using the temperatures derived from [SIII] and [NII], and report the gas-phase abundance gradients for NGC628. Relative abundances of S/O, Ne/O, and Ar/O are constant across the galaxy, consistent with no systematic change in the upper IMF over the sampled range in metallicity. These alpha-element ratios, along with N/O, all show small dispersions consistent with no intrinsic dispersion (0.05) over 70% of the azimuthally averaged radius. We interpret these results as an indication that, at a given radius, the interstellar medium in NGC628 is chemically well-mixed. Unlike the nearly temperature-independent gradients, O/H abundances have a larger intrinsic dispersion of ~0.13 dex. We posit that this dispersion represents an upper limit to the true dispersion in O/H at a given radius and that some of that dispersion is due to systematic uncertainties arising from temperature measurements.