A spatially resolved study of ionized regions in galaxies at different ...

96 3 • IFS of a GEHR in NGC 6946
Object ID N(WR) WR/O
Knot A 125 ± 10 0.047 ± 0.008
Knot B 5 ± 2 0.002 ± 0.001
Knot C 22 ± 3 0.008 ± 0.001
Table 3.11: Derived number of WR stars and ratios between WR and O stars.
of star formation. The only exception is knot B, where the equivalent width is slightly higher
than predicted by the models. However, the observed relative intensities are inside in the
expected range of theoretical values. From both quantities, an age around 4 Myr fits well for
the three knots, indicating that these bursts are very young.
As already told in section 3.4.7, a red bump has been marginally detected in knot A,
indicating the existence of WC stars, but no accurate measurements were made due the low
signal-to-noise, so only the total number of WR (WN+WC) can be estimated.
Table 3.11 shows the number of O and WR stars. We have derived these numbers by
comparing the dereddened luminosities of Hα and of the WR blue bump with the predictions
of the instantaneous model of Starburst 99. As it can be seen, knot A contains more than
one hundred WR stars, as expected from the strong blue bump feature from its integrated
spectra. Interestingly, Knot B has a few WR stars, despite its weak contribution in the
continuum map of Figure 3.15.
Other way to estimate the number of WR stars is by means of calibration of WR stars.
Smith (1991) estimates that a single WN7 star emits 3.2 × 10 36 ergs s −1 at 4650Å, which
yields a total number of 120 ± 10 WR stars, very close to the value derived from the Starburst
99 model. On the other hand, Vacca and Conti (1992) estimate that one WN7 star emits 1.7
× 10 36 ergs s −1 , rising the number of WR stars almost by a factor of 2.
3.5.3 Metal content
We derived oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen, neon, argon and iron chemical abundances in the
integrated spectrum of the PPak-field and in three of the four knots, where auroral lines of
[Oiii], [Oii] and [Siii] have been measured and thus their respective electron temperature
derived. Due to the quality of the data, the electron temperatures derived and thus, the
metallicities, have associated errors comparable to the dispersion found in empirical calibrations.
The derived temperatures (see Table 3.7) for the three knots and the integrated spectrum
of the PPak-field show values very similar for all of them, centered in 8000K for t([Oiii]).
Knot A shows a higher temperature, as expected from its Hα luminosity, but similar to the
other measurements within the errors. Similarly, all the values for t([Oii]) are very close.
The only exception is the one estimated for knot B from a relation with t([Oiii]) based on