HII in M31 and M33

Physics

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Scientific paper

Our closest spiral neighbors, M31 and M33, offer extensive opportunity for studies of their HII region populations and diffusely distributed ionized gas. Paradoxically, their closeness to us, resulting in a large angular size on the sky, has made it difficult to obtain calibrated Hα CCD images of their entire disks, a situation which has changed only recently. The Hα-luminosity functions of HII regions for both galaxies show a clear flattening in the power-law slopes towards fainter HII regions, as expected from theoretical considerations. In both galaxies we find an extended diffusely distributed ionized medium outside the canonical HII regions, that contributes 40 to 45% of the total observed Hα luminosity and that is likely mostly ionized by field OB stars and Lyman continuum photons from OB stars situated in density-bounded HII regions. The properties of this medium are similar in many respects in these galaxies, in spite of very different star formation rates per unit disk area and in spite of differences in the luminous HII region populations.

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