Oxygen abundances in dwarf irregular galaxies and the metallicity-luminosity relationship

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 374, Number 2, August I 2001


Page(s)		412 - 420
Section		Extragalactic astronomy
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20010732

A&A 374, 412-420 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20010732

Oxygen abundances in dwarf irregular galaxies and the metallicity-luminosity relationship

L. S. Pilyugin

Main Astronomical Observatory of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Goloseevo, 03680 Kiev-127, Ukraine

(Received 20 December 2000 / Accepted 2 May 2001 )

Abstract
The low-luminosity dwarf irregular galaxies are considered. The oxygen abundances in H II regions of dwarf irregular galaxies were recalculated from published spectra through the recently suggested P-method. It has been found that the metallicity of low-luminosity dwarf irregular galaxies, with a few exceptions, correlates well with galaxy luminosity. The dispersion of oxygen abundances around the metallicity-luminosity relationship increases with decreasing galaxy luminosity, as was found by Richer & McCall (1995). The absence of a relationship between the oxygen abundance and the absolute magnitude in the blue band for irregular galaxies obtained by Hidalgo-Gámez & Olofsson (1998) can be explained by the large uncertainties in the oxygen abundances derived through the $T_{\rm e}$ -method, that in turn can be explained by the large uncertainties in the measurements of the strengths of the weak oxygen line $\rm [OIII] \lambda 4363$ used in the $T_{\rm e}$ -method.

Key words: galaxies: abundances -- galaxies: ISM -- galaxies: irregular -- galaxies: individual: NGC 6822

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