arXiv subjects

Brent Groves

Publications and source records attributed to Brent Groves.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Formation of globular cluster-rich ultra-diffuse galaxies through mergers

We use high-resolution, idealized hydrodynamic simulations of gas-rich dwarf-galaxy mergers to test whether such encounters can form ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) with globular cluster (GC) systems. We simulate 1:1 and 1:2 mergers alongside an isolated control model and identify stellar overdensities as GC candidates (GCCs). The remnants evolve into dispersion-supported, UDG-like systems with three-dimensional stellar half-mass radii $r^{3D} \sim 1.9-2.6$ kpc, while the isolated dwarf remains rotationally supported and forms no GCCs. Tidal heating and stellar feedback expel a large fraction of the gas beyond the dark matter (DM) halo, leaving stellar-dominated remnants whose DM haloes remain cuspy. Merger-driven star formation is highly clustered: the fraction of newly formed stellar mass bound in massive clusters exceeds 0.5 after the first pericentric passage and remains elevated thereafter. By the final snapshot, the remnants host GC populations numbering 20 (1:1) and 39 (1:2), more centrally concentrated than the field stars and consistent with the observed GC number-halo mass relation. The GCCs match observed star clusters in the planes of mass versus size, velocity dispersion, and density. More massive clusters exhibit stronger internal rotation and broader metallicity spreads. In one case, the merger produces a nucleated UDG via cluster inspiral followed by sustained in-situ star formation. These results demonstrate that gas-rich dwarf mergers are a viable pathway to GC-rich (and sometimes nucleated) UDGs, and predict correlated cluster mass, rotation, and metallicity-dispersion trends testable with observations.

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arXiv2026

The Mysterious Case of Iron in XMPs: Anomalous High log(Fe/O) Observed in Extremely Metal-Poor Galaxies HSCJ1631+4426 and SDSSJ0811+4730

We present integral field spectroscopic observations of two local extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs), HSCJ1631+4426 and SDSSJ0811+4730, obtained with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) over the wavelength range $3545-5529$ {\AA} at a spectral sampling of 0.5 {\AA}, capturing bright nebular emission lines essential for determining gas-phase metallicity and chemical enrichment measurements. Using integrated spectra, we derive oxygen abundances of $\rm12+\log(O/H)=7.079\pm0.010$ and $6.926\pm0.004$, and elevated Fe/O ratios of $\rm\log(Fe/O)=-1.57\pm0.17$ and $-1.28\pm0.07$, for HSCJ1631+4426 and SDSSJ0811+4730 respectively. Each galaxy is fully contained within the $\sim$8'' field of view, with 0.15'' spaxels providing spatially resolved information. These measurements indicate unusually efficient iron enhancement at extremely low metallicity; Fe/O ratios approach or exceed solar despite oxygen abundances of only $\sim$2% solar, inconsistent with enrichment from core-collapse supernovae alone or delayed Type Ia supernovae given the young ages of the systems. Comparison with chemical evolution models suggests rare, highly energetic explosions such as bright hypernovae and/or pair-instability supernovae are likely responsible. Our results reinforce the growing evidence that XMPs can reflect the nucleosynthetic processes of early energetic stellar explosions, serving as local laboratories for chemical enrichment pathways prevalent in the early Universe.

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arXiv2026

Toward Unbiased Abundance Measurements in Inhomogeneous $\mathrm{H\,II}$ Regions

Probing the chemical content of the interstellar medium (ISM) in nearby galaxies provides key insight into their chemical evolution and informs our interpretation of galaxies at higher redshift. However, nonlinear structure in the ISM, including density and temperature inhomogeneities, can bias chemical abundance measurements and systematically affect empirical calibrations derived from them. In this work, we investigate biases in $T_e$-derived oxygen abundance determinations and explore the physical properties that correlate with them. We combine $\mathrm{[O\,II]}\lambda\lambda3726, 3729$ measurements from SITELLE with a full suite of optical emission lines obtained with MUSE. From auroral emission lines ($\mathrm{[N\,II]}\lambda5755$, $\mathrm{[S\,III]}\lambda6312$, and $\mathrm{[O\,II]}\lambda\lambda7320, 7330$) and nebular emission lines (including $\mathrm{[N\,II]}\lambda6584$ and $\mathrm{[S\,III]}\lambda9069$), we derive electron densities, temperatures, and chemical abundances for a sample of $\mathrm{H\, II}$ regions in five galaxies. We find that densities derived from the $\mathrm{[O\,II]}$ auroral-to-nebular ratio are $\sim10^3$ cm$^{-3}$, which is higher than the standard $\mathrm{[S\,II]}$ densities derived from nebular doublet ratios. We demonstrate that combining the $\mathrm{[N,II]}$ electron temperature with the density inferred from the $\mathrm{[O\,II]}$ auroral-to-nebular line ratio yields singly ionized oxygen abundances consistent with literature expectations for a prescription insensitive to density inhomogeneities. We also find that the $\mathrm{[S\,III]}$ temperature provides a reliable estimate of $T_{e,\mathrm{[O\,III]}}$, enabling robust measurements of doubly ionized oxygen abundances. Overall, these results indicate that the abundance discrepancy factor could be higher in more chemically evolved $\mathrm{H\, II}$ regions.

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arXiv2026

Exploring the synergies of $[\mathrm{O\,II}]\lambda 3727$ with MUSE spectroscopy in PHANGS H II regions

Spatially resolved maps of gas-phase metallicity provide key constraints on the chemical enrichment and mixing processes that drive galaxy evolution, but measurements based only on strong lines remain highly uncertain and dependent on emission-line coverage. In this work, we present a joint analysis of SITELLE observations, covering the $[O II]\lambda\lambda3726,3729$ doublet, with PHANGS-MUSE spectroscopy covering 4800-9300 Angstroms, including $H\beta$, $[O III]\lambda4959,5007$, $[N II]\lambda6584$, $H\alpha$, $[S II]\lambda\lambda6716,6731$, and $[S III]\lambda9069$, within five nearby spiral galaxies. By combining these data, we construct a homogeneous catalog of emission-line fluxes for 604 ionized nebulae, 556 of which are classified as H II regions. This enables a comparison of eight widely used strong-line metallicity calibrations, five new strong-line calibrations, and an investigation of ionization-parameter diagnostics. We recover known systematic offsets among calibrations, but also find that many exhibit very low scatter, less than 0.03-0.04 dex, in radial metallicity gradients. We find that $[S III]/[S II]$ exhibits minimal secondary dependence on metallicity or extinction, suggesting that it may be a more robust tracer of ionization parameter than $[O III]/[O II]$. No significant outliers are identified in O/H or N/O within the sampled regions, indicating internally consistent abundance trends across the inner disks probed by our data. We provide a publicly available catalog of all measured emission-line fluxes, designed to support future investigations, including temperature modeling and strong-line abundance calibrations.

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arXiv2026

The PHANGS-H{\alpha} survey. Ground-based narrow-band imaging of nearby star-forming galaxies

We present PHANGS-H{\alpha}, a narrow-band imaging survey that maps H{\alpha} emission over a sample of 65 nearby massive star-forming galaxies. The data were obtained using the MPG-ESO 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla and the du Pont 2.5-meter telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, in the framework of the multi-wavelength cloud-scale (50-100 pc) resolution mapping of molecular gas and star formation conducted by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) collaboration. PHANGS-H{\alpha} complements the already published PHANGS-ALMA, PHANGS-MUSE, PHANGS-HST, and PHANGS-JWST surveys, providing an anchor point for the photometric and astrometric calibration of these datasets, as well as samples of H ii regions, and star formation rate maps for the bulk of the PHANGS sample. We present observations, data processing, and calibration of the PHANGS-H{\alpha} dataset, as well as the procedures used to derive emission-line fluxes from narrow-band imaging. A subset of galaxies with available spectroscopic Ha mapping from the PHANGS-MUSE survey allows for a detailed comparison with the narrow-band photometry presented here. This informs a series of best practices for the processing of narrow-band H{\alpha} imaging that we apply to the full dataset.

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arXiv2026

Stellar associations powering HII regions $\unicode{x2013}$ II. Escape fraction of ionizing photons

Newly formed stars have a profound impact on their environment by depositing energy and momentum into the surrounding gas. However, only a fraction of the stellar feedback is retained in the cloud and observational constraints are needed to further our understanding of this process. In a sample of 19 nearby galaxies, we match HII regions from PHANGS$\unicode{x2013}$MUSE to their ionizing stellar source from PHANGS$\unicode{x2013}$HST and measure the percentage of ionizing radiation that is leaking into the surrounding diffuse ionized gas (DIG). Based on a catalogue, where each HII region is powered by a single young and massive stellar association, we measure a photon escape fraction of $f_\mathrm{esc}=82^{+12}_{-24}$ per cent. Comparable results are obtained when different procedures are used to match the ionized gas to its source. All samples we study contain a substantial fraction of objects (up to 20 per cent), where the stellar source is not sufficient to produce the H$\alpha$ flux observed from the nebula. Many of them are probably related to uncertain age estimates, but we also find numerous regions, where a significant fraction of the ionizing photon budget is contributed by stars that reside outside the boundaries of the HII region. This motivates the use of an alternative galaxy-wide approach, in which we include all HII regions and stellar sources, not just the ones that show a clear overlap. When summing up the ionization budget over entire galaxies, we measure slightly lower, but consistent values.

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arXiv2025

The Resolved Structure of a Low Metallicity Photodissociation Region

Photodissociation Regions (PDRs) are key to understanding the feedback processes that shape interstellar matter in galaxies. One important type of PDR is the interface between HII regions and molecular clouds, where far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation from massive stars heats gas and dissociates molecules. Photochemical models predict that the C/CO transition occurs deeper in the PDR compared to the H/H$_2$ transition in low-metallicity environments, increasing the extent of CO-dark H$_2$ gas. This prediction has been difficult to test outside the Milky Way due to the lack of high spatial resolution observations tracing H$_2$ and CO. This study examines a low-metallicity PDR in the N13 region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) where we spatially resolve the ionization front, the H$_2$ dissociation front, and the C/CO transition using 12CO J=2-1, 3-2 and [CI] (1-0) observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-mm Array (ALMA) and near-infrared spectroscopy of the H$_2$ 2.12 1-0S(1) vibrational line, and H recombination lines from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Our analysis shows that the separation between the H/H$_2$ and C/CO boundaries is approximately 0.043 $\pm$ 0.013(stat.) $\pm$ 0.0036(syst.) pc (equivalent to 0".146 $\pm$ 0".042(stat.) $\pm$ 0".012(syst.) at the SMC's distance of 62 kpc), defining the spatial extent of the CO-dark H$_2$ region. Compared to our plane-parallel PDR models, we find that a constant pressure model matches the observed structure better than a constant density one. Overall, we find that the PDR model does well at predicting the extent of the CO-dark H$_2$ layer in N13. This study represents the first resolved benchmark for low metallicity PDRs.

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arXiv2025

The PHANGS-HST-Halpha Survey: Warm Ionized Gas Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS with the Hubble Space Telescope

The PHANGS project is assembling a comprehensive, multi-wavelength dataset of nearby (~5-20 Mpc), massive star-forming galaxies to enable multi-phase, multi-scale investigations into the processes that drive star formation and galaxy evolution. To date, large survey programs have provided molecular gas (CO) cubes with ALMA, optical IFU spectroscopy with VLT/MUSE, high-resolution NUV--optical imaging in five broad-band filters with HST, and infrared imaging in NIRCAM+MIRI filters with JWST. Here, we present PHANGS-HST-Halpha, which has obtained high-resolution (~2-10 pc), narrow-band imaging in the F658N or F657N filters with the HST/WFC3 camera of the warm ionized gas in the first 19 nearby galaxies observed in common by all four of the PHANGS large programs. We summarize our data reduction process, with a detailed discussion of the production of flux-calibrated, Milky Way extinction corrected, continuum-subtracted Halpha maps. PHANGS-MUSE IFU spectroscopy data are used to background subtract the HST-Halpha maps, and to determine the [NII] correction factors for each galaxy. We describe our public data products and highlight a few key science cases enabled by the PHANGS-HST-Halpha observations.

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arXiv2025

The resolved star-formation efficiency of early-type galaxies

Understanding how and why star formation varies between galaxies is fundamental to our comprehension of galaxy evolution. In particular, the star-formation efficiency (SFE; star-formation rate or SFR per unit cold gas mass) has been shown to vary substantially both across and within galaxies. Early-type galaxies (ETGs) constitute an extreme case, as about a quarter have detectable molecular gas reservoirs but little to no detectable star formation. In this work, we present a spatially-resolved view of the SFE in ten ETGs, combining state-of-the-art Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations. Optical spectroscopic line diagnostics are used to identify the ionized emission regions dominated by star-formation, and reject regions where the ionization arises primarily from other sources. We identify very few regions where the ionization is consistent with pure star formation. Using ${\rm H}\alpha$ as our SFR tracer, we find that previous integrated measurements of the star-formation rate based on UV and 22$\mu$m emission are systematically higher than the SFR measured from ${\rm H}\alpha$. However, for the small number of regions where ionization is primarily associated with star formation, the SFEs are around 0.4 dex higher than those measured in star-forming galaxies at a similar spatial resolution (with depletion times ranging from $10^8$ to $10^{10}$ yr). Whilst the SFE of ETGs is overall low, we find that the SFEs of individual regions within ETGs can be similar to, or higher than, similar sized regions within star-forming galaxies.

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arXiv2025

GalProTE: Galactic Properties Mapping using Transformer Encoder

This work presents GalProTE, a proof-of-concept Machine Learning model utilizing a Transformer Encoder to determine stellar age, metallicity, and dust attenuation from optical spectra. Designed for large astronomical surveys, GalProTE significantly accelerates processing while maintaining accuracy. Using the E-MILES spectral library, we construct a dataset of 111,936 diverse templates by expanding 636 simple stellar population models with varying extinction, spectral combinations, and noise modifications. This ensures robust training over 4750 to 7100 Angstrom at 2.5 Angstrom resolution. GalProTE employs four parallel attention-based encoders with varying kernel sizes to capture spectral features. On synthetic test data, it achieves a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.27% between input and predicted spectra. Validation on PHANGS-MUSE galaxies NGC4254 and NGC5068 confirms its ability to extract physical parameters efficiently, with residuals averaging -0.02% and 0.28% and standard deviations of 4.3% and 5.3%, respectively. To contextualize these results, we compare GalProTE's age, metallicity, and dust attenuation maps with pPXF, a state-of-the-art spectral fitting tool. While pPXF requires approximately 11 seconds per spectrum, GalProTE processes one in less than 4 milliseconds, offering a 2750 times speedup and consuming 68 times less power per spectrum. The strong agreement between pPXF and GalProTE highlights the potential of machine learning to enhance traditional methods, paving the way for faster, energy-efficient, and scalable analyses of galactic properties in modern surveys.

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arXiv2025

Linking stellar populations to HII regions across nearby galaxies. II. Infrared Reprocessed and UV Direct Radiation Pressure in HII Regions

Radiation pressure is a key mechanism by which stellar feedback disrupts molecular clouds and drives HII region expansion. This includes direct radiation pressure exerted by UV photons on dust grains, pressure associated with photoionization, and infrared (IR) radiation pressure on grains due to dust-reprocessed IR photons. We present a new method that combines high resolution mid-IR luminosities from JWST-MIRI, optical attenuation and nebular line measurements from VLT-MUSE, and HST H$\alpha$-based region sizes to estimate the strength of radiation pressure in $\approx 18,000$ HII regions across 19 nearby star-forming galaxies. This is the most extensive and direct estimate of these terms beyond the Local Group to date. In the disks of galaxies, we find that the total reprocessed IR pressure is on average 5% of the direct UV radiation pressure. This fraction rises to 10% in galaxy centers. We expect reprocessed IR radiation pressure to dominate over UV radiation pressure in regions where $L_{\rm F2100W}/L_{\rm H\alpha}^{\rm corr} \gtrsim 75$. Radiation pressure due to H ionizations is lower than pressure on dust in our sample, but appears likely to dominate the radiation pressure budget in dwarf galaxies similar to the Small Magellanic Cloud. The contribution from all radiation pressure terms appears to be subdominant compared to thermal pressure from ionized gas, reinforcing the view that radiation pressure is most important in compact, heavily embedded, and young regions.

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arXiv2024

Tracing the earliest stages of star and cluster formation in 19 nearby galaxies with PHANGS-JWST and HST: compact 3.3 $\mu$m PAH emitters and their relation to the optical census of star clusters

The earliest stages of star and cluster formation are hidden within dense cocoons of gas and dust, limiting their detection at optical wavelengths. With the unprecedented infrared capabilities of JWST, we can now observe dust-enshrouded star formation with $\sim$10 pc resolution out to $\sim$20 Mpc. Early findings from PHANGS-JWST suggest that 3.3 $\mu$m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission can identify star clusters in their dust-embedded phases. Here, we extend this analysis to 19 galaxies from the PHANGS-JWST Cycle 1 Treasury Survey, providing the first characterization of compact sources exhibiting 3.3$\mu$m PAH emission across a diverse sample of nearby star-forming galaxies. We establish selection criteria, a median color threshold of F300M-F335M=0.67 at F335M=20, and identify of 1816 sources. These sources are predominantly located in dust lanes, spiral arms, rings, and galaxy centers, with $\sim$87% showing concentration indices similar to optically detected star clusters. Comparison with the PHANGS-HST catalogs suggests that PAH emission fades within $\sim$3 Myr. The H$\alpha$ equivalent width of PAH emitters is 1-2.8 times higher than that of young PHANGS-HST clusters, providing evidence that PAH emitters are on average younger. Analysis of the bright portions of luminosity functions (which should not suffer from incompleteness) shows that young dusty clusters may increase the number of optically visible $\leq$ 3 Myr-old clusters in PHANGS-HST by a factor between $\sim$1.8x-8.5x.

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arXiv2024

Emission Line Velocity, Metallicity and Extinction Maps of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Optical emission lines across the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) have been measured from multiple fields using the Australian National University (ANU) 2.3m telescope with the Wide-Field Spectrograph (WiFeS). Interpolated maps of the gas-phase metallicity, extinction, H$\alpha$ radial velocity and H$\alpha$ velocity dispersion have been made from these measurements. There is a metallicity gradient from the centre to the north of the galaxy of ~-0.095 dex/kpc with a shallower metallicity gradient from the centre to the south of the galaxy of ~-0.013 dex/kpc. There is an extinction gradient of ~-0.086 E(B-V)/kpc from the centre going north and shallower going from the centre to the south of ~-0.0089 E(B-V)/kpc. The SMC eastern arm has lower extinction than the main body. The radial velocity of the gas from the H$\alpha$ line and the HI line have been compared across the SMC. In general there is good agreement between the two measurements, though there are a few notable exceptions. Both show a region that has different radial velocity to the bulk motion of the SMC in the southern western corner by at least 16 kms$^{-1}$. The velocity dispersion from H$\alpha$ and HI across the SMC have also been compared, with the H$\alpha$ velocity dispersion usually the higher of the two. The eastern arm of the SMC generally has lower velocity dispersion than the SMC's main body. These measurements enable a detailed examination of the SMC, highlighting its nature as a disrupted satellite galaxy.

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arXiv2024

Machine learning the gap between real and simulated nebulae: A domain-adaptation approach to classify ionised nebulae in nearby galaxies

Classifying ionised nebulae in nearby galaxies is crucial to studying stellar feedback mechanisms and understanding the physical conditions of the interstellar medium. This classification task is generally performed by comparing observed line ratios with photoionisation simulations of different types of nebulae (HII regions, planetary nebulae, and supernova remnants). However, due to simplifying assumptions, such simulations are generally unable to fully reproduce the line ratios in observed nebulae. This discrepancy limits the performance of the classical machine-learning approach, where a model is trained on the simulated data and then used to classify real nebulae. For this study, we used a domain-adversarial neural network (DANN) to bridge the gap between photoionisation models (source domain) and observed ionised nebulae from the PHANGS-MUSE survey (target domain). The DANN is an example of a domain-adaptation algorithm, whose goal is to maximise the performance of a model trained on labelled data in the source domain on an unlabelled target domain by extracting domain-invariant features. Our results indicate a significant improvement in classification performance in the target domain when employing the DANN framework compared to a classical neural network (NN) classifier. Additionally, we investigated the impact of adding noise to the source dataset, finding that noise injection acts as a form of regularisation, further enhancing the performances of both the NN and DANN models on the observational data. The combined use of domain adaptation and noise injection improved the classification accuracy in the target domain by 23%. This study highlights the potential of domain adaptation methods in tackling the domain-shift challenge when using theoretical models to train machine-learning pipelines in astronomy.

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arXiv2024

The spatially resolved relation between dust, gas, and metal abundance with the TYPHOON survey

We present the spatially resolved relationship between the dust-to-gas mass ratio (DGR) and gas-phase metallicity (Zgas or 12+log(O/H)) (i.e., DGR-Zgas relation) of 11 nearby galaxies with a large metallicity range (1.5 dex of 12+log(O/H)) at (sub-)kpc scales. We used the large field-of-view (> 3') optical pseudo-Integral Field Spectroscopy data taken by the TYPHOON/PrISM survey, covering the optical size of galaxies, combining them with multi-wavelength data (far-UV to far-IR, CO, and HI 21 cm radio). A large scatter of DGR in the intermediate metallicity galaxies (8.0 < 12+log(O/H) < 8.3) is found, which is in line with dust evolution models, where grain growth begins to dominate the mechanism of dust mass accumulation. In the lowest metallicity galaxy of our sample, Sextans A (12+log(O/H) < 7.6), the star-forming regions have significantly higher DGR values (by 0.5-2 dex) than the global estimates from literature at the same metallicity but aligns with the DGR values from metal depletion method from Damped Lyman Alpha systems and high hydrogen gas density regions of Sextans A. Using dust evolution models with a Bayesian MCMC approach suggests: 1) a high SN dust yield and 2) a negligible amount of photofragmentation by UV radiation, although we note that our sample in the low-metallicity regime is limited to Sextans A. On the other hand, it is also possible that while metallicity influences DGR, gas density also plays a role, indicating an early onset of dust grain growth in the dust mass build-up process despite its low metallicity.

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arXiv2024

PHANGS-ML: the universal relation between PAH band and optical line ratios across nearby star-forming galaxies

The structure and chemistry of the dusty interstellar medium (ISM) are shaped by complex processes that depend on the local radiation field, gas composition, and dust grain properties. Of particular importance are Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), which emit strong vibrational bands in the mid-infrared, and play a key role in the ISM energy balance. We recently identified global correlations between PAH band and optical line ratios across three nearby galaxies, suggesting a connection between PAH heating and gas ionization throughout the ISM. In this work, we perform a census of the PAH heating -- gas ionization connection using $\sim$700,000 independent pixels that probe scales of 40--150 pc in nineteen nearby star-forming galaxies from the PHANGS survey. We find a universal relation between $\log$PAH(11.3 \mic/7.7 \mic) and $\log$([SII]/H$\alpha$) with a slope of $\sim$0.2 and a scatter of $\sim$0.025 dex. The only exception is a group of anomalous pixels that show unusually high (11.3 \mic/7.7 \mic) PAH ratios in regions with old stellar populations and high starlight-to-dust emission ratios. Their mid-infrared spectra resemble those of elliptical galaxies. AGN hosts show modestly steeper slopes, with a $\sim$10\% increase in PAH(11.3 \mic/7.7 \mic) in the diffuse gas on kpc scales. This universal relation implies an emerging simplicity in the complex ISM, with a sequence that is driven by a single varying property: the spectral shape of the interstellar radiation field. This suggests that other properties, such as gas-phase abundances, gas ionization parameter, and grain charge distribution, are relatively uniform in all but specific cases.

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arXiv2024

Metallicity calibrations based on auroral lines from PHANGS-MUSE data

We present a chemical analysis of selected HII regions from the PHANGS-MUSE nebular catalogue. Our intent is to empirically re-calibrate strong-line diagnostics of gas-phase metallicity, applicable across a wide range of metallicities within nearby star-forming galaxies. To ensure reliable measurements of auroral line fluxes, we carried out a new spectral fitting procedure whereby only restricted wavelength regions around the emission lines of interest are taken into account: this assures a better fit for the stellar continuum. No prior cuts to nebulae luminosity were applied to limit biases in auroral line detections. Ionic abundances of O+, O++, N+, S+, and S++ were estimated by applying the direct method. We integrated the selected PHANGS-MUSE sample with other existing auroral line catalogues, appropriately re-analysed to obtain a homogeneous dataset. This was used to derive strong-line diagnostic calibrations that span from 12+log(O/H) = 7.5 to 8.8. We investigate their dependence on the ionisation parameter and conclude that it is likely the primary cause of the significant scatter observed in these diagnostics. We apply our newly calibrated strong-line diagnostics to the total sample of HII regions from the PHANGS-MUSE nebular catalogue, and we exploit these indirect metallicity estimates to study the radial metallicity gradient within each of the 19 galaxies of the sample. We compare our results with the literature and find good agreement, validating our procedure and findings. With this paper, we release the full catalogue of auroral and nebular line fluxes for the selected HII regions from the PHANGS-MUSE nebular catalogue. This is the first catalogue of direct chemical abundance measurements carried out with PHANGS-MUSE data.

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arXiv2024

Chemical evolution of a young super star cluster at the Sunburst Arc

Recent observations of high-redshift galaxies have revealed starburst galaxies with excessive amounts of nitrogen, well above that expected in standard evolutionary models. The Sunburst Arc galaxy, particularly its young and massive star cluster, represents the closest ($z=2.4$) and brightest of these as a strongly lensed object. In this work, we study the chemical history of this star cluster to determine the origin of the elevated gas-phase nitrogen using a chemical evolution model. Our model includes the enrichment of OB stars through stellar winds and core-collapse supernovae assuming that massive stars ($M>25$ $M_\odot$) collapse directly into black holes at the end of their lives. We fit the model parameters to the observed chemical abundances of the Sunburst Arc cluster: O/H, C/O, and N/O. We find that the observed chemical abundances can be explained by models featuring intense star formation events, characterized by rapid gas accretion and high star formation efficiencies. Additionally, the stellar population contributing to the gas enrichment must exclude Wolf-Rayet stars. These conditions might be present in other nitrogen-rich objects as their similar chemical abundances suggest a common history. As previous studies have proposed the presence of Wolf-Rayet stars in the new nitrogen-rich objects, further research using chemodynamic modeling is necessary to ascertain the true nature of these objects.

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