SCYON Abstract

Received on October 31 2006

The metallicity of circumnuclear star forming regions

AuthorsA.I. Diaz (1), E. Terlevich (2), M. Castellanos (1,3), and G. Hageles (1)
Affiliation
(1) Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
(2) INAOE, Puebla, Mexico
(3) Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, CSIC, Madrid, Spain
To appear inThe Metal Rich Universe, La Palma, June 2006
Contactangeles.diaz@uam.es
URLhttp://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0610787
Links

Abstract

We present a spectrophotometric study of circumnuclear star forming regions (CNSFR) in the early type spiral galaxies: NGC 2903, NGC 3351 and NGC 3504, all of them of over solar metallicity according to standard empirical calibrations. A detailed determination of their abundances is made after careful subtraction of the very prominent underlying stellar absorption. It is found that most regions show the highest abundances in HII region-like objects. The relative N/O and S/O abundances are discussed.It is also shown that CNSFR, as a class, segregate from the disk HII region family, clustering around smaller "softness parameter" - η - values, and therefore higher ionizing temperatures.