Bibcode
DOI
Peimbert, Antonio; Peimbert, Manuel; Luridiana, Valentina
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 565, Issue 2, pp. 668-680.
Advertised on:
2
2002
Journal
Citations
141
Refereed citations
104
Description
We study the effect that the temperature structure has on the
determination of the primordial helium abundance, Yp. We
provide an equation linking T(O III), the temperature derived from the
[O III] lines, and T(He II), the temperature of the He I lines, both for
H II regions with O++ only and for H II regions where a
fraction of O+ is present. By means of T(He II), which is
always smaller than T(O III), we derive the helium abundances of five
objects with low and very low metallicity (NGC 346, NGC 2363, Haro 29,
SBS 0335-052, and I Zw 18); these objects were selected from the
literature because they include the three low-metallicity objects with
the best line determinations and the two objects with the lowest
metallicity. From these abundances we obtain that
Yp(nHc)=0.2356+/-0.0020, a value 0.0088 lower than that
derived by using T(O III). We call this determination Yp(nHc)
because the collisional contribution to the Balmer-line intensities has
not been taken into account. All the recent Yp determinations
in the literature have not taken into account the collisional
contribution to the Balmer-line intensities. By considering the
collisional contribution to the Balmer-line intensities of these five
objects, we derive that Yp(+Hc)=0.2384+/-0.0025.