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Chemical abundances of Seyfert 2 AGNs – III. Reducing the oxygen abundance discrepancy

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Dors, OL 
Cardaci, MV 
Hägele, GF 
Krabbe, AC 

Abstract

We investigate the discrepancy between oxygen abundance estimations for narrow-line regions (NLRs) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) type Seyfert 2 derived by using direct estimations of the electron temperature (Te-method) and those derived by using photoionization models. In view of this, observational emission-line ratios in the optical range (3000 < \lambda(\AA) < 7000) of Seyfert 2 nuclei compiled from the literature were reproduced by detailed photoionization models built with the Cloudy code. We find that the derived discrepancies are mainly due to the inappropriate use of the relations between temperatures of the low (t2) and high (t3) ionization gas zones derived for H II regions in AGN chemical abundance studies. Using a photoionization model grid, we derived a new expression for t2 as a function of t3 valid for Seyfert 2 nuclei. The use of this new expression in the AGN estimation of the O/H abundances based on Te-method produces O/H abundances slightly lower (about 0.2 dex) than those derived from detailed photoionization models. We also find that the new formalism for the Te-method reduces by about 0.4 dex the O/H discrepancies between the abundances obtained from strong emission-line calibrations and those derived from direct estimations.

Description

Keywords

Galaxy: abundances, Galaxy: evolution, galaxies: nuclei, galaxies: Seyfert, Galaxy: formation, galaxies: ISM

Journal Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0035-8711
1365-2966

Volume Title

496

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/M001172/1)
European Research Council (695671)
ERC STFC