A new insight of AGC198691 (Leoncino) galaxy with MEGARA at the GTC

TL;DR

This study uses MEGARA integral field spectroscopy to analyze the low-metallicity galaxy AGC198691 (Leoncino), revealing its ionized gas properties, star formation history, and confirming its status as a genuine extremely metal-deficient galaxy.

Contribution

First spatially resolved spectroscopy of Leoncino galaxy, providing detailed insights into its star-forming regions and gas kinematics, and confirming its low-metallicity nature.

Findings

Leoncino is a genuine XMD galaxy with no recent gas inflow or outflow evidence.

Star formation is driven by a young cluster of about 3.5 Myr age.

Radial emission profiles suggest multiple stellar populations or cluster evolution.

Abstract

We describe the observations of the low-metallicity nearby galaxy AGC198691 (Leoncino dwarf) obtained with the Integral Field Unit of the instrument MEGARA at the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The observations cover the wavelength ranges 4304 - 5198 A and 6098 - 7306 A with a resolving power R ~ 6000. We present 2D maps of the ionized gas, deriving the extension of the HII region and gas kinematics from the observed emission lines. We have not found any evidence of recent gas infall or loss of metals by means of outflows. This result is supported by the closed-box model predictions, consistent with the oxygen abundance found by other authors in this galaxy and points towards Leoncino being a genuine XMD galaxy. We present for the first time spatially resolved spectroscopy allowing the detailed study of a star forming region. We use PopStar+Cloudy models to simulate the emission-line spectrum. We find that the central emission line spectrum can be explained by a single young ionizing cluster with an age ~ 3.5 +/- 0.5Myr and a stellar mass of about 2000 solar masses. However, the radial profiles of [OIII]5007 A and the Balmer lines in emission demand photoionization by clusters of different ages between 3.5 and 6.5Myr that might respond either to the evolution of a single cluster evolving along the cooling time of the nebula (about 3Myr at the metallicity of Leoncino, Z ~ 0.0004) or to mass segregation of the cluster, being both scenarios consistent with the observed equivalent widths of the Balmer lines