Bibcode
Gutiérrez, L.; Beckman, J. E.; Buenrostro, V.
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 141, Issue 4, article id. 113 (2011).
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4
2011
Citations
27
Refereed citations
25
Description
We have used images from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble
Space Telescope in Hα, and in the neighboring continuum, to
produce flux-calibrated images of the large spiral galaxy M51 and the
dwarf irregular NGC 4449. From these images, we have derived the
absolute luminosities in Hα, the areas, and the positions with
respect to the galactic centers as reference points of over 2600 H II
regions in M51 and over 270 H II regions in NGC 4449. Using this
database, we have derived luminosity-volume (L-V) relations for the
regions in the two galaxies, showing that within the error limits these
obey the equation L ~ V 2/3, which differs from the linear
relation expected for regions of constant uniform electron density. We
briefly discuss possible models which would give rise to this
behavior—notably models with strong density inhomogeneities within
the regions. Plotting the luminosity functions for the two galaxies, we
find a break in the slope for M51 at log(L) = 38.5 dex (units in erg
s-1) for M51 in good agreement with the previous ground-based
study by Rand, and above this luminosity NGC 4449 also shows a sharp
decline in its luminosity function, although the number of regions is
too small to plot the function well at higher luminosities. The
cumulative diameter distribution for the H II regions of M51 shows dual
behavior, with a break at a radius close to 100 pc, the radius of
regions with the break luminosity. Here too we indicate possible
physical implications.