The First Empirical Calibration of the MIR Abundance Diagnostic Ne$_{23}$ with JWST
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2026
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| author | Rogers, Noah S. J. Skillman, Evan D. Berg, Danielle A. Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Pogge, Richard W. Aloisi, Alessandra Hunt, Leslie K. Jaskot, Anne E. Mingozzi, Matilde Vaught, Ryan J. Rickards Sandstrom, Karin M. Telford, O. Grace del Valle-Espinosa, Macarena G. |
| author_facet | Rogers, Noah S. J. Skillman, Evan D. Berg, Danielle A. Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Pogge, Richard W. Aloisi, Alessandra Hunt, Leslie K. Jaskot, Anne E. Mingozzi, Matilde Vaught, Ryan J. Rickards Sandstrom, Karin M. Telford, O. Grace del Valle-Espinosa, Macarena G. |
| contents | Large surveys of galaxies in the local and high-redshift Universe have, traditionally, relied on the intensity of rest-optical emission lines from metal ions in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) to indirectly estimate the O/H abundance in the gas. However, these optical strong line diagnostics are also sensitive to the electron gas temperature ($T_e$), resulting in large systematic uncertainties that inherently limit their utility as metallicity tracers, especially in dust-obscured and metal-rich environments. To this end, we provide the first empirical calibration of Ne$_{23}$, a novel abundance diagnostic using the mid-infrared (MIR) $T_e$-insensitive [Ne II]$λ$12.81$μ$m and [Ne III]$λ$15.56$μ$m fine-structure lines. We present new JWST/MIRI MRS observations of ten H II regions with optical measurements of $T_e$ and O/H from the CHAOS project, and we analyze MIRI observations of eight low-metallicity galaxies with similarly high-fidelity direct O/H. We measure Ne$_{23}$ from 1D MIR spectra extracted from apertures matched to the ground-based spectroscopy used to obtain O/H, a method that is unfeasible from MIR spectra acquired on prior space-based observatories. From these nebulae, Ne$_{23}$ is strongly correlated with O/H over 1.5 dex in 12+log(O/H). We calibrate the O/H-Ne$_{23}$ relation from the empirical data, finding a scatter of just 0.06 dex in O/H at fixed Ne$_{23}$. The O/H-Ne$_{23}$ relation presented here provides a means to reliably estimate 12+log(O/H) from JWST/MIRI MRS observations of ionized nebulae out to z$\approx$0.8, enabling new chemical abundance surveys of highly-attenuated regions and in the metal-rich ISM. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_27056 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The First Empirical Calibration of the MIR Abundance Diagnostic Ne$_{23}$ with JWST Rogers, Noah S. J. Skillman, Evan D. Berg, Danielle A. Arellano-Córdova, Karla Z. Pogge, Richard W. Aloisi, Alessandra Hunt, Leslie K. Jaskot, Anne E. Mingozzi, Matilde Vaught, Ryan J. Rickards Sandstrom, Karin M. Telford, O. Grace del Valle-Espinosa, Macarena G. Astrophysics of Galaxies Large surveys of galaxies in the local and high-redshift Universe have, traditionally, relied on the intensity of rest-optical emission lines from metal ions in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) to indirectly estimate the O/H abundance in the gas. However, these optical strong line diagnostics are also sensitive to the electron gas temperature ($T_e$), resulting in large systematic uncertainties that inherently limit their utility as metallicity tracers, especially in dust-obscured and metal-rich environments. To this end, we provide the first empirical calibration of Ne$_{23}$, a novel abundance diagnostic using the mid-infrared (MIR) $T_e$-insensitive [Ne II]$λ$12.81$μ$m and [Ne III]$λ$15.56$μ$m fine-structure lines. We present new JWST/MIRI MRS observations of ten H II regions with optical measurements of $T_e$ and O/H from the CHAOS project, and we analyze MIRI observations of eight low-metallicity galaxies with similarly high-fidelity direct O/H. We measure Ne$_{23}$ from 1D MIR spectra extracted from apertures matched to the ground-based spectroscopy used to obtain O/H, a method that is unfeasible from MIR spectra acquired on prior space-based observatories. From these nebulae, Ne$_{23}$ is strongly correlated with O/H over 1.5 dex in 12+log(O/H). We calibrate the O/H-Ne$_{23}$ relation from the empirical data, finding a scatter of just 0.06 dex in O/H at fixed Ne$_{23}$. The O/H-Ne$_{23}$ relation presented here provides a means to reliably estimate 12+log(O/H) from JWST/MIRI MRS observations of ionized nebulae out to z$\approx$0.8, enabling new chemical abundance surveys of highly-attenuated regions and in the metal-rich ISM. |
| title | The First Empirical Calibration of the MIR Abundance Diagnostic Ne$_{23}$ with JWST |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27056 |