The oxygen abundance in the solar neighborhood

Abstract

We present a homogeneous analysis of the oxygen abundance in five H II regions and eight planetary nebulae (PNe) located at distances lower than 2kpc and with available spectra of high quality. We find that both the collisionally excited lines (CELs) and recombination lines imply that the PNe are overabundant in oxygen by about 0.2dex. An explanation that reconciles the oxygen abundances derived with CELs for H II regions and PNe with the values found for B stars, the Sun, and the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) requires the presence in H II regions of an organic refractory dust component that is not present in PNe. This dust component has already been invoked to explain the depletion of oxygen in molecular clouds and in the diffuse ISM. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.