Sulphur abundance determinations in star-forming regions-I: Ionization Correction Factor

TL;DR

This study develops new ionization correction factors for sulfur in star-forming regions using photoionization models, improving abundance estimates and revealing a metallicity-dependent trend in the S/O ratio.

Contribution

It introduces a set of theoretically derived ICFs for sulfur, calibrated with models and observational data, enhancing accuracy in abundance determinations.

Findings

Theoretical ICFs align well with observational data.

Differences between ICF methods are within typical uncertainties.

S/O ratio decreases with increasing metallicity.

Abstract

In the present work we used a grid of photoionization models combined with stellar population synthesis models to derive reliable Ionization Correction Factors (ICFs) for the sulphur in star-forming regions. These models cover a large range of nebular parameters and yielding ionic abundances in consonance with those derived through optical and infrared observational data of star-forming regions. From our theoretical ICFs, we suggested an {\alpha} value of 3.27 in the classical Stasinska formulae. We compared the total sulphur abundance in the gas phase of a large sample of objects by using our Theoretical ICF and other approaches. In average, the differences between the determinations via the use of the different ICFs considered are similar to the uncertainties in the S/H estimations. Nevertheless, we noted that for some objects it could reach up to about 0.3 dex for the low metallicity regime. Despite of the large scatter of the points, we found a trend of S/O ratio to decrease with the metallicity, independently of the ICF used to compute the sulphur total abundance.