Investigating Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies in the Ultraviolet with HST/COS Spectroscopy. I: Spectral Analysis and Interstellar Abundance Determinations

Understand

This is the first in a series of three papers describing a project with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope to measure abundances of the neutral interstellar medium (ISM) in a sample of 9 nearby star-forming galaxies.

• The goal is to assess the (in)homogeneities of the multiphase ISM in galaxies where the bulk of metals can be hidden in the neutral phase, yet the metallicity is inferred from the ionized gas in the HII regions.
• The sample, spanning a wide range in physical properties, is to date the best suited to investigate the metallicity behavior of the neutral gas at redshift z=0.
• ISM absorption lines were detected against the far-ultraviolet spectra of the brightest star-forming region(s) within each galaxy.