The rich O II recombination spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 7009: new observations and atomic data

TLDR: In this paper, the authors presented new spectrophotometric observations of the rich O II optical recombination line spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 7009, obtained at a spectral resolution of about 1 Angstrom (FWHM), and showed that the discrepancy between the abundances derived from these two different types of emission Lines, previously known to exist for C2+, is probably caused by the same physical process.

Abstract: We present new spectrophotometric observations of the rich O II optical recombination line spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 7009, obtained at a spectral resolution of about 1 Angstrom (FWHM). New intermediate coupling quantal calculations of O II radiative recombination coefficients for the 3d-3p and 4f-3d transitions are presented. The effect of departure from pure LS-coupling is shown to be important. Excellent agreement is found between the observed relative intensities of the O II lines and those calculated from recombination theory allowing for intermediate coupling effects. C, N and O abundances based on our recombination line measurements are derived. In all cases, they are about a factor of 5 higher than the corresponding values deduced from collisionally excited lines, indicating that the discrepancy between the abundances derived from these two different types of emission Lines, previously known to exist for C2+, is a common phenomenon, and is probably caused by the same physical process. The nature of this process is still not known. If the discrepancy is due to temperature fluctuations, the implied rms temperature fluctuation parameter t(2) is about a factor of 2 larger than that derived by comparing the temperatures deduced from the [O III] forbidden line ratio and from the ratio of the nebular continuum Balmer discontinuity to H beta. However, if we adopted the electron temperature derived from nebular continuum Balmer discontinuity instead of that from the [O III] forbidden line ratio, the C and N abundances deduced from ultraviolet collisionally excited lines would come into agreement with those deduced from the optical recombination lines, although the abundance of oxygen deduced from the optical forbidden lines would still be a factor of 2 lower than the corresponding value obtained from the optical recombination lines. The O/H abundance ratio derived from our recombination line analysis of NGC 7009 is more than a factor of 2 higher than the solar oxygen abundance.