The Localized Chemical Pollution in NGC 5253 Revisited: Results from Deep Echelle Spectrophotometry

Abstract

WepresentechellespectrophotometryofthebluecompactdwarfgalaxyNGC 5253obtainedwiththeVLTUVES. We have measured the intensities of a large number of permitted and forbidden emission lines in four zones of the centralpartof thegalaxy.Wedetect faint C iiand O iirecombinationlines, thefirsttimethat these areunambiguously detected in a dwarf starburst galaxy. The physical conditions of the ionized gas have been derived using a large number of different line intensity ratios. Chemical abundances of He, N, O, Ne, S, Cl, Ar, and Fe have been determined following standardmethods.C ++ andO ++ abundanceshavebeenderivedfrompurerecombinationlinesand arelargerthanthoseobtainedfromcollisionallyexcitedlines(from0.30to0.40dexforC ++ andfrom0.19to0.28dex for O ++ ). This result is consistent with atemperaturefluctuation parameter (t 2 ) between 0.050 and 0.072. Weconfirm previous results that indicate the presence of a localized N enrichment in certain zones of NGC 5253 and detect a possible slight He overabundance in the same zones. The enrichment pattern agrees with that expected for the pollution by the ejecta of Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars. The amount of enriched material needed to produce the observed overabundance is consistent with the mass lost by the number of W-R stars estimated in the starbursts. We discuss the possible origin of the difference between abundances derived from recombination and collisionally excited lines (the so-called abundance discrepancy problem) in H ii regions, finding that a recent hypothesis based on the delayed enrichment by SN ejecta inclusions seems not to explain the observed features. Subject headingg galaxies: abundances — galaxies: clusters: individual (NGC 5253) — galaxies: kinematics and dynamics — galaxies: starburst Online material: color figures, machine-readable table