The impact of bars on the properties of HII regions in the TIMER survey

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sánchez-Menguiano, Laura, Gadotti, Dimitri A., Zurita, Almudena, Florido, Estrella, Pérez, Isabel, Coelho, Paula, Falcón-Barroso, Jesús, Kim, Taehyun, de Lorenzo-Cáceres, Adriana, Lugo-Aranda, Alejandra Z., Neumann, Justus, de Sá-Freitas, Camila, Sánchez-Blázquez, Patricia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914205723000832
author Sánchez-Menguiano, Laura
Gadotti, Dimitri A.
Zurita, Almudena
Florido, Estrella
Pérez, Isabel
Coelho, Paula
Falcón-Barroso, Jesús
Kim, Taehyun
de Lorenzo-Cáceres, Adriana
Lugo-Aranda, Alejandra Z.
Neumann, Justus
de Sá-Freitas, Camila
Sánchez-Blázquez, Patricia
author_facet Sánchez-Menguiano, Laura
Gadotti, Dimitri A.
Zurita, Almudena
Florido, Estrella
Pérez, Isabel
Coelho, Paula
Falcón-Barroso, Jesús
Kim, Taehyun
de Lorenzo-Cáceres, Adriana
Lugo-Aranda, Alejandra Z.
Neumann, Justus
de Sá-Freitas, Camila
Sánchez-Blázquez, Patricia
contents In this study we perform a comparative analysis of the properties of the HII regions located in different areas of barred galaxies, with the aim of investigating the impact of bars on the physical properties of the ionised gas. Based on integral field spectroscopy data for 17 barred galaxies covering approximately the central 6x6 kpc, we detect a total of 2200 HII regions, of which 331 are located within the nuclear disc (also known as circumnuclear regions), 661 in the bar region, and 1208 in the disc. Among the physical properties of the HII regions, we explore the O/H and N/O abundances, H$α$ luminosity, dust extinction, electron density, and H$α$ equivalent width. We find clear differences in the properties of the HII regions between the nuclear disc, the bar and the disc, that could be explained by an enhancement in the molecular gas concentration in the central parts driven by bar-induced gas flows. As this gas is channelled towards the galaxy centre, the most extreme values in the analysed properties are found for the circumnuclear HII regions. Unlike the bar strength, galaxy mass does seem to affect the properties of the HII regions, with massive galaxies presenting higher values in most of the properties, possibly due to the increased amount of gas in these systems. This study provides evidence that the bar-driven redistribution of material within the galaxy inner parts causes significant differences in the HII region properties depending on their location within the galaxies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_15637
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The impact of bars on the properties of HII regions in the TIMER survey
Sánchez-Menguiano, Laura
Gadotti, Dimitri A.
Zurita, Almudena
Florido, Estrella
Pérez, Isabel
Coelho, Paula
Falcón-Barroso, Jesús
Kim, Taehyun
de Lorenzo-Cáceres, Adriana
Lugo-Aranda, Alejandra Z.
Neumann, Justus
de Sá-Freitas, Camila
Sánchez-Blázquez, Patricia
Astrophysics of Galaxies
In this study we perform a comparative analysis of the properties of the HII regions located in different areas of barred galaxies, with the aim of investigating the impact of bars on the physical properties of the ionised gas. Based on integral field spectroscopy data for 17 barred galaxies covering approximately the central 6x6 kpc, we detect a total of 2200 HII regions, of which 331 are located within the nuclear disc (also known as circumnuclear regions), 661 in the bar region, and 1208 in the disc. Among the physical properties of the HII regions, we explore the O/H and N/O abundances, H$α$ luminosity, dust extinction, electron density, and H$α$ equivalent width. We find clear differences in the properties of the HII regions between the nuclear disc, the bar and the disc, that could be explained by an enhancement in the molecular gas concentration in the central parts driven by bar-induced gas flows. As this gas is channelled towards the galaxy centre, the most extreme values in the analysed properties are found for the circumnuclear HII regions. Unlike the bar strength, galaxy mass does seem to affect the properties of the HII regions, with massive galaxies presenting higher values in most of the properties, possibly due to the increased amount of gas in these systems. This study provides evidence that the bar-driven redistribution of material within the galaxy inner parts causes significant differences in the HII region properties depending on their location within the galaxies.
title The impact of bars on the properties of HII regions in the TIMER survey
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15637