ALFALFA DISCOVERY OF THE MOST METAL-POOR GAS-RICH GALAXY KNOWN: AGC 198691

作者：Hirschauer, Alec S.^*; Salzer, John J.; Skillman, Evan D.; Berg, Danielle; McQuinn, Kristen B. W.; Cannon, John M.; Gordon, Alex J. R.; Haynes, Martha P.; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Adams, Elizabeth A. K.; Janowiecki, Steven; Rhode, Katherine L.; Pogge, Richard W.; Croxall, Kevin V.; Aver, Erik

来源：Astrophysical Journal, 2016, 822(2): 108.

DOI：10.3847/0004-637X/822/2/108

• galaxies: abundances
• galaxies: dwarf
• galaxies: evolution
• galaxies: ISM
• galaxies: star formation

We present spectroscopic observations of the nearby dwarf galaxy AGC 198691. This object is part of the Survey of H I in Extremely Low-Mass Dwarfs project, which is a multi-wavelength study of galaxies with H I masses in the range of 10(6) - 10(7.2) M-circle dot, discovered by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey. We have obtained spectra of the lone H II region in AGC 198691 with the new high-throughput KPNO Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Mayall 4 m, as well as with the Blue Channel spectrograph on the MMT 6.5 m telescope. These observations enable the measurement of the temperature-sensitive [O III]lambda 4363 line and hence the determination of a "direct" oxygen abundance for AGC 198691. We find this system to be an extremely metal-deficient (XMD) system with an oxygen abundance of 12+log(O/H) = 7.02 +/- 0.03, making AGC 198691 the lowest-abundance star-forming galaxy known in the local universe. Two of the five lowest-abundance galaxies known have been discovered by the ALFALFA blind H I survey; this high yield of XMD galaxies represents a paradigm shift in the search for extremely metal-poor galaxies.

• 出版日期2016-5-10