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Deuterium Balmer Emission from Nebulae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

Guillaume Hébrard
Affiliation:
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, 98 bis boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France
Daniel Péquignot
Affiliation:
DAEC, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France
Alfred Vidal-Madjar
Affiliation:
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France
Jeremy R. Walsh
Affiliation:
European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany
Roger Ferlet
Affiliation:
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France

Abstract

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We report on the detection and first identification of the deuterium Balmer lines dα and dβ, observed in emission in the Orion Nebula (M 42). The excitation mechanism is UV fluorescence from the Lyman(D i) lines at the interface between the H ii region and the molecular cloud. These lines may open the possibility to measure D/H in galactic H ii regions and, e.g., low-metallicity extragalactic H ii regions, using optical spectroscopy. Fluorescence provides an extremely sensitive way to detect deuterium. Thus, the non-detection of dα and dβ in the planetary nebula NGC 6572 leads to the stringent upper limit (D/H)ngc 6572 less than the order of 1 × 10−7.

Type
3. Abundances of D, 3He and 4He
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2000 

References

Hébrard, G., Péquignot, D., Vidal-Madjar, A., Walsh, J. R., & Ferlet, R. 2000, accepted for publication in A&A Letters (astro-ph/0002141) Google Scholar
Lemoine, M., Audouze, J., Ben Jaffel, L., et al. 1999, New Astronomy 4, 231 Google Scholar