[164.04] The HII Region Luminosity Function and Diffuse H$\alpha$ Emission in HI-Selected Galaxies from SINGG

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 164 Extra-galactic ISM - Near to Far
Oral, Wednesday, 2:00-3:30pm, January 11, 2006, Balcony A

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[164.04] The HII Region Luminosity Function and Diffuse H\alpha Emission in HI-Selected Galaxies from SINGG

M. S. Oey (U. Michigan), G. R. Meurer (JHU), S. M. Caballero-Nieves (U. Michigan), E. Furst (Bucknell U.), D. J. Hanish (JHU), E. M. Levesque (MIT), D. A. Thilker (JHU), G. L. Walth (Lowell Obs.), S. Yelda (U. Michigan), SINGG Team

We use H\alpha observations of HI-selected galaxies from the SINGG survey (Meurer et al. 2001) to study the HII region luminosity function (HII LF) and the fraction of diffuse, warm ionized gas as a function of star formation properties and HI properties. The slope of the HII LF is robust to galaxy type, but appears to flatten for starburst galaxies, which are dominated by brighter objects. We also demonstrate the dependence of the slope on galaxy angle of inclination. The fraction of total H\alpha emission from the diffuse ISM appears to be anti-correlated with galaxy star formation rate per unit area, as indicated by total H\alpha luminosity, and it is independent of inclination angle. The latter is consistent with the much larger scale height (~1 kpc) of the diffuse, warm ISM relative to the typical HII region radius.

This work was supported by NSF grant AST-0448893 and the NSF REU program at Northern Arizona University.

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