Realistic ionizing fluxes for young stellar populations from 0.05 to 2 Z

Abstract

We present a new grid of ionizing fluxes for O and Wolf-Rayet stars for use with evolutionary synthesis codes and single star H II region analyses. A total of 230 expanding, non-LTE, line-blanketed model atmospheres have been calculated for five metallicities (0.05, 0.2, 0.4, 1 and 2 solar) using the WM-basic code of Pauldrach et al. (2001) and the CMFGEN code of Hillier & Miller (1998). The stellar wind parameters are scaled with metallicity for both O and W-R stars. We incorporate the new models into Starburst99 (Leitherer et al. 1999) and compare the ionizing outputs with Schaerer & Vacca (1998) and Leitherer et al. (1999). The changes in the output ionizing fluxes are dramatic, particularly below 228 A. We also find lower fluxes in the He I continuum for Z > 0.4 solar and ages < 7 Myr because of the increased line blanketing. We test the accuracy of the new models by constructing photoionization models. We show that for the dwarf O star grid, He I 5876/H beta decreases between Z = 1 and twice solar in a similar manner to observations (e.g. Bresolin et al. 1999) due to the increased effect of line blanketing. We therefore suggest that a lowering of the upper mass limit at high abundances is not required to explain the observations. For the case of an instantaneous burst, we plot the softness parameter "eta prime" against the abundance indicator R_23. The new models are coincident with the data of Bresolin et al. (1999), particularly during the W-R phase, unlike previous models which over-predict the hardness of the ionizing radiation.