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# Calibration of Nebular Emission-Line Diagnostics: II. Abundances

## 1. Introduction

The emission-line signatures of H ii regions are a powerful and widely-used indicator of galactic abundances. This is especially true in distant galaxies where most stellar abundance probes cannot be employed. Furthermore, the spectral properties of H ii regions also give important diagnostics of the ionizing stellar population, such as effective temperature and numbers of stars. Given the wide use of such nebular diagnostics, it is vital to test and calibrate them using H ii regions with known characteristics and ionizing stellar populations.

Along with a companion paper (Oey et al. 2000; hereafter Paper I), we report here on a detailed study for this purpose, of four H ii regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The OB associations in all four of these H ii regions have been examined in detail and classified, thereby strongly constraining the ionizing energy distributions. In addition, the LMC’s proximity and orientation with respect to the Galaxy also permit a detailed understanding of the nebular morphology. Thirdly, the abundances can be accurately determined. We therefore have high-quality information on the three principal parameters that determine the nebular emission: stellar effective temperature ($`T_{}`$), the ionization parameter ($`U`$) that relates ionizing flux to gas density, and metallicity ($`Z`$).

Table 1 gives a brief summary of our objects, which can be examined in greater detail in Paper I. The first two columns in Table 1 give the H ii region identification in the Davies, Elliott, & Meaburn (1976) and Henize (1956) H$`\alpha `$ catalogs, respectively; the third column identifies the parent OB association from Lucke & Hodge (1970). Column four shows the spectral type of the dominant ionizing stars, as classified by the references in column 8. Column five lists the nebular H$`\alpha `$ luminosity from Oey & Kennicutt (1997), and column 6 shows the adopted value from Paper I, of the inner radius of the gas distribution, as a fraction of the Strömgren radius $`R_\mathrm{S}`$. This gives some indication of the nebular morphology. Finally, column 7 indicates the presence of significant shock excitation: DEM L243 includes an embedded or superimposed supernova remnant (SNR), and DEM L301 also shows evidence of significant shock activity (Paper I). While shocks may be present in the other objects as well, their contribution to the nebular emission is unimportant.

The detailed presentation of the objects is given in Paper I, including narrow-band images in H$`\alpha `$, \[O III\], and \[S II\], and spectroscopic observations over the wavelength range 3500 – 9200 Å. For each object, we observed two to three stationary, spatially-resolved slit positions. For all of the objects except DEM L301, we also obtained spatially integrated observations by scanning the long slit across the nebulae. The scanned data should therefore resemble typical observations of such H ii regions at distances of 10 – 20 Mpc. As seen in Table 1, the sample spans a range in dominant stellar spectral types, from O7 to early Wolf-Rayet (WR). There is also variety in the morphology of the objects, ranging from near perfect Strömgren sphere (DEM L323), to extreme shell structure (DEM L301), to highly complex (DEM L199).

Paper I provides a detailed analysis of the spatially resolved emission-line ratios with respect to the sequence in $`T_{}`$ represented by these objects, and a comparison with photoionization models using the current generation of stellar atmosphere models for both O stars and early WR stars. In general we found a gratifyingly high level of agreement, largely supporting the CoStar energy distributions of Schaerer & de Koter (1997) and early WR atmospheres of Schmutz, Leitherer, & Gruenwald (1992) and Hamann & Koesterke (1998). In conjunction with data from Kennicutt et al. (2000), we provide a first, empirical calibration of nebular diagnostics for the dominant $`T_{}`$. In addition to the well-known $`\eta ^{}`$ radiation softness parameter of Vílchez & Pagel (1988), we introduce \[Ne III\]$`\lambda `$3869/H$`\beta `$ as a similar diagnostic, which is more robust to nebular conditions and is sensitive for a higher range of $`T_{}`$.

We also presented in Paper I the spatially-resolved behavior of the O abundance parameter (Pagel et al. 1979),

$$R23\frac{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{II}]\lambda 3727+[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]\lambda \lambda 4959,5007}{\mathrm{H}\beta };$$
(1)
and S abundance parameter (Vílchez & Esteban 1996; Christensen et al. 1997; Díaz et al. 1999),

$$S23\frac{[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{II}]\lambda 6724+[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{III}]\lambda \lambda 9069,9532}{\mathrm{H}\beta },$$
(2)
where we designate the \[S II\] lines $`\lambda 6716+\lambda 6732`$ as $`\lambda `$6724, analogous to \[O II\]$`\lambda `$3727. We confirmed that both observationally and theoretically, $`R23`$ remains spatially uniform across the nebulae. In contrast, for uniform abundances, models of $`S23`$ vary across the nebulae, showing lower values in central regions. The observations clearly reflect this pattern, which is caused by the missing ionization stage of S IV. We address this issue in detail below in this paper. As is well-known, $`R23`$ and $`S23`$ are also sensitive to $`T_{}`$, and these effects are also shown in Paper I for our objects.

In this paper, we present the abundance determinations for our sample, for both the spatially-resolved and scanned longslit observations. We examine conventional assumptions for the nebular electron temperature ($`T_e`$) structure and resulting ionic and total abundance determinations. We then explore the metallicity diagnostics $`R23`$ and $`S23`$ in more detail, and introduce another diagnostic, $`S234`$. As before, we use the photoionization code Mappings II (Sutherland & Dopita 1993) in conjunction with CoStar stellar atmosphere models (Schaerer & de Koter 1997) for O stars.

## 2. Direct abundance determinations

We derived abundances from the measured line fluxes in Paper I using standard techniques. For calculation of line emissivities for elements heavier than helium, we used the five-level atom code Five\_L as implemented in Stsdas version 1.3.5 (Shaw & Dufour 1995). We initially obtained an estimate of electron density from the \[S II\] $`\lambda `$6716/$`\lambda `$6731 line intensity ratio, assuming a default $`T_e=10^4`$ K. The densities are almost all $`100\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

### 2.1. Temperature structure

The assumed $`T_e`$ structure, and thereby, ionization structure of the H ii region, can generate substantial uncertainties in even “direct” abundance determinations from typical optical emission-line spectra. The $`T_e`$ structure is in turn a function of density structure and stellar atmosphere models. Peimbert’s (1967) $`t^2`$ formulation for temperature fluctuations is probably the best-known example of addressing this problem, which can be used for both small-scale and large-scale variations in $`T_e`$.

We consider here the large-scale temperature structure. As discussed below, our photoionization models tend to overestimate $`T_e`$, suggesting that small-scale fluctuations are not significant. Standard abundance determinations adopt either a single characteristic $`T_e`$ or a two-zone model for $`T_e`$, and these assumptions can also cause substantial errors in abundance determinations. Garnett (1992) provides one of the more thorough investigations of this issue, which is a well-known problem for elements like S that do not conform well to a two-zone model. However, if the adopted zone temperatures do not adequately characterize the respective regions, then the inferred abundance can be significantly in error even for elements like O that are well-described by a two-zone model. This can be a problem especially in cooler nebulae with $`T_e10,000`$ K, that have strong temperature gradients (Garnett 1992; Stasińska 1980).

We assumed here a two-zone temperature structure for our nebulae, such that a common $`T_e`$ was adopted for excitation of O III, Ne III, S III, and Ar III; while a separate $`T_e`$ was adopted for the excitation of N II, O II, and S II. We used the same electron density for both zones.

For the high ionization zone, we adopted $`T`$(O++), the volume-averaged $`T_e`$ for the O++ population. This is obtained essentially directly from the observed $`T`$\[O III\], the temperature inferred from the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$4363/($`\lambda `$4959 + $`\lambda `$5007) line intensity ratio. A temperature can also be obtained in principle from the \[S III\] $`\lambda `$6312/($`\lambda `$9069 + $`\lambda `$9532) ratio. However, the auroral line flux in this case was often described by a large fractional uncertainty, which introduced correspondingly large random errors in the resulting abundances; there is also some possibility that the near-IR lines may be affected by telluric absorption (e.g., Stevenson 1994). We consequently chose to adopt $`T`$(O++)$`=T`$\[O III\] for the high-ionization zone, including the S++ region. Garnett (1992) has suggested on the basis of nebular models that the relation between ion-weighted temperatures for S++ and O++ is linear, but with a slope differing from unity. For objects in the current study, $`T`$\[O III\] values are generally close to 10,000 K, at which point Garnett’s work suggests that the ion-weighted $`T`$(S++) and $`T`$(O++) should be similar; thermal effects of dust in the nebula may also be expected to reduce the contrast between the two temperatures (Shields & Kennicutt 1995), lending support to use of a common value.

For the low-ionization zone, $`T_e`$ can be obtained directly from the \[S II\]($`\lambda `$4069 + $`\lambda `$4076)/($`\lambda `$6716 + $`\lambda `$6731) ratio, but we found that this option frequently suffered from a low signal-to-noise ratio. It is often standard practice to derive the lower-ionization $`T`$(O+) from the higher-ionization $`T`$(O++) using an analytic relation (e.g., Campbell, Terlevich, & Melnick 1986; Pagel et al. 1992), whose accuracy clearly affects that of the abundance determination. We investigated several alternatives before adopting a prescription for $`T`$(O+). In deciding what relation to adopt, our principal criterion was that the abundances input to Mappings photoionization models for the individual objects (Paper I) should be consistent with those inferred from the output emission-line spectra. For example, when using the expression employed by Pagel et al. (1992, their equation 6), our resultant H ii region model spectra implied an O abundance that was $`0.2`$ dex lower than the assumed input, a substantial departure from self-consistency!

The relationship between $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$(O+) is model-dependent, and varies with ionization parameter and metallicity. Figure 1 shows $`T`$(O+) vs. $`T`$(O++) for Mappings photoionization models at $`Z=0.3\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, with an inner radius of 0.4$`R_\mathrm{S}`$. The different symbols correspond to different CoStar stellar atmospheres as indicated, with B2, C2, and E2 corresponding to spectral types O8–O9, O6–O7, and O3–O4, respectively. We show models with $`\mathrm{log}U=2,3,`$ and $`4`$. The dashed and dot-dashed lines show the relation between $`T`$(O+) and $`T`$(O++) from Campbell et al. (1986; see also Garnett 1992), and Pagel et al. (1992), respectively, while the dotted line delineates $`T`$(O+)$`=`$$`T`$(O++).

The Pagel et al. relation deviates significantly from the models at these temperatures, while the Campbell et al. relation shows reasonable agreement in slope for $`T`$(O++$`>10,000`$ K, falling close to the theoretical predictions for $`\mathrm{log}U=3`$. At lower temperatures, the models are more consistent with an isothermal nebula. We consequently adopted the formulation,

$$T(\mathrm{O}^+)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0.7T(\mathrm{O}^{++})+3000\mathrm{K},\hfill & T(\mathrm{O}^{++})>10,000\mathrm{K}\hfill \\ T(\mathrm{O}^{++}),\hfill & T(\mathrm{O}^{++})<10,000\mathrm{K}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
where $`T`$(O++)$`=T`$\[O III\] as described above. The relation for $`T`$(O++) $`>10,000`$ K is that given by Campbell et al. Equation 3 yields consistent input and output abundances to $`0.05`$ dex, except for Ne, whose modeled line ratios are persistently discrepant with the observations (Paper I; see below). We caution that Figure 1 and equation 3 are optimized in the parameter space relevant to our LMC targets. Different formulations may be more appropriate at other metallicities and ionization parameters; it is beyond the scope of this work to fully examine this issue. However, it is clear that some care is necessary in choosing a relation between $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$(O+).

While we ensured consistency between the input and output abundances to the photoionization models, one worrisome problem that remains unresolved is the overprediction of $`T_e`$ in comparison to the observations, as presented in Paper I. To briefly summarize, the predicted $`T`$\[O III\] is greater than that inferred from the observed \[O III\]$`\lambda `$4363/$`\lambda `$5007 by 850 K in DEM L323 and 1500 K in DEM L199. The problem may also exist in the other two objects, DEM L243 and DEM L301, but the fainter emission from $`\lambda `$4363 in these lower-excitation nebulae prevented any useful constraints. We also found that the discrepancy persisted when using Hummer & Mihalas (1970) stellar atmosphere models and the Cloudy (Ferland 1998) photoionization code. Since $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$\[O III\] agree to $`<1`$% in the models, the effect is not caused by non-collisional excitation of $`\lambda `$4363 in the models. As discussed in Paper I, the temperature discrepancy occurs in lines of sight across the entire nebulae, and is in the opposite sense of that expected from small-scale temperature fluctuations (Peimbert 1967). Our sample therefore shows no evidence that such $`T_e`$ fluctuations systematically bias our abundance determinations. Mathis (1995) discusses evidence for and against the general existence of significant $`T_e`$ fluctuations.

### 2.2. Ionic abundances

Determining ionic abundances relative to H requires calculation of the H$`\beta `$ emissivity, which is also temperature dependent, but originates in both the high- and low-ionization zones. We adopted an intermediate temperature for calculation of the H$`\beta `$ emissivity, representing an average of $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$(O+), weighted by the relative abundances of O++ and O+. The same intermediate temperature was used for computing He emissivities, using expressions taken from Benjamin et al. (1999). This construction was used to obtain ionic abundances from the line measurements in Paper I, which were corrected for reddening and, where necessary, underlying Balmer absorption. The abundance results for different nebular lines of a single ion were combined, weighted by the variance of the line fluxes.

Total abundances were obtained from the ionic abundances following the standard practice of using ionization correction factors (ICFs) to allow for unobserved ionization stages. We employ the following relations:

$$\frac{\mathrm{O}}{\mathrm{H}}=\frac{\mathrm{O}^++\mathrm{O}^{++}}{\mathrm{H}^+},$$
(4)
where the lack of detectable He II$`\lambda `$4686 emission indicates no significant O+3 population;

$$\frac{\mathrm{N}}{\mathrm{H}}=\frac{\mathrm{N}^+}{\mathrm{O}^+}\frac{\mathrm{O}}{\mathrm{H}}$$
(5)
(Peimbert & Costero 1969; Garnett 1990); and

$$\frac{\mathrm{S}}{\mathrm{H}}=\left[\frac{\mathrm{S}^++\mathrm{S}^{++}}{\mathrm{H}^+}\right]/\mathrm{ICF}(\mathrm{S}^{+3}),$$
(6)
where

$$\mathrm{ICF}(\mathrm{S}^{+3})=\left[1\left(1\frac{\mathrm{O}^+}{\mathrm{O}}\right)^\alpha \right]^{1/\alpha },$$
(7)
with $`\alpha =2.5`$, corrects for unobserved S+3 ions (Garnett 1989; Stasińska 1978). For the noble gases, we adopt

$$\frac{\mathrm{Ne}}{\mathrm{H}}=\frac{\mathrm{Ne}^{++}}{\mathrm{O}^{++}}\frac{\mathrm{O}}{\mathrm{H}}$$
(8)
(Peimbert & Costero 1969; Simpson et al. 1995), and

$$\frac{\mathrm{Ar}}{\mathrm{H}}=\frac{\mathrm{Ar}^{++}}{\mathrm{S}^++\mathrm{S}^{++}}\frac{\mathrm{S}}{\mathrm{H}}$$
(9)
(Garnett et al. 1997). Most of our objects are ionized by early-type stars (Table 1), thereby fully ionizing He, but not exhibiting detectable He II. Thus our default relation for He is simply,

$$\frac{\mathrm{He}}{\mathrm{H}}=\frac{\mathrm{He}^+}{\mathrm{H}^+}.$$
(10)
For DEM L243, which is ionized by O7 stars, the He I $`\lambda `$5876/H$`\beta `$ line ratios suggest that He is not fully ionized throughout the nebula (Paper I; see below). For this object, we experimented with the expression for He/H given by Peimbert & Torres-Peimbert (1977; their equation 15), that includes an ICF for He0; however, this prescription yields He abundances that are at least 0.1 dex higher than the rest of the objects in the sample. We therefore give results for DEM L243 using equation 10 and note that these should be treated as lower limits to the true abundance. It is worth remarking that our investigation supports the results of Baldwin et al. (1991), who find that the Orion He abundance was slightly overestimated by Peimbert & Torres-Peimbert as a result of their ICF for He0.

The theoretical support for use of equations 49 derives mostly from models that consider the integrated properties of H ii regions (e.g., Garnett 1992; Mathis 1985; Stasińska 1978). Thus, observations that sample only a small “pencil-beam” through a nebula may not yield the correct abundances if such an analysis scheme is used; Gruenwald & Viegas (1992) have discussed this problem in detail. However, previous observational studies have found generally good agreement in elemental abundances derived at variable positions across individual nebulae, using the integrated-spectrum methods (e.g., Díaz et al. 1987; Masegosa, Moles, & del Olmo 1991; González-Delgado et al. 1994). Such agreement was found even when substantial excitation gradients were seen within the H ii region. In the present study, we can directly compare abundances obtained from the integrated spectrum of a nebula with those calculated by the same means from small-aperture measurements at a variety of radii. We show below in §2.3.1 that we find a high degree of consistency between the different aperture measurements for the same source, including the integrated spectrum. These results support the validity of using integrated-spectrum prescriptions when only a part of the H ii region is observed. Apparently the characteristic physical parameters determined for the two ionization zones are adequate to determine the ionic abundances to high accuracy in our objects.

### 2.3. Abundance results

We used the prescriptions above to compute abundances for both the spatially resolved and scanned, spatially integrated observations for each object. Table 2 presents results for the individual, spatially resolved observations, along with error estimates. These were obtained from the uncertainties in measured fluxes, using a Monte Carlo method similar to that described by Kobulnicky & Skillman (1996). Input flux values were modified randomly by addition of Gaussian noise with amplitude corresponding to 1-$`\sigma `$ measurement uncertainties, for a total of 5000 iterations per spectrum. A few points with low signal-to-noise ratios yielded unphysical solutions in the $`T_e`$ and abundance determinations, and these were discarded from the sample. The standard deviation of the resulting abundance distribution was adopted as the final uncertainty.

Table 3 presents the mean values of the spatially-resolved measurements, weighted inversely by the variances. We also list the corresponding formal uncertainty in the mean. Note that the weighting scheme and quoted errors assume that actual variations are negligible in the quantities listed in Table 3, and that the scatter results from a normal distribution of measurement errors. As described below, we do not find significant evidence for abundance fluctuations; however, it is possible that the measurement errors may not be a strictly normal distribution. The listed errors in Table 3 are therefore likely to somewhat underestimate the true uncertainties, nor do these include systematic errors.

Regarding the abundances of Ne, it is important to note that there is probably a substantial systematic error in the values obtained in Table 3, and also later in Table 4. As discussed in Paper I, the observed line intensities for Ne are systematically discrepant with the tailored models. Although earlier generation stellar atmospheres caused \[Ne III\] intensities to be underpredicted, we now find a modest overprediction. The discrepancy can be resolved by reducing log(Ne/H) by 0.2 – 0.3 dex. However, since we do not understand the cause of the discrepancy, we have chosen to list the Ne abundance derived from the standard relations. It appears likely that errors in the stellar atmospheres are responsible for much of the problem (Paper I). Peimbert (1993) also emphasizes the uncertainty in equation 8. The high ionization potential (40.96 eV) required for Ne III gives it outstanding potential for probing hot stellar ionizing sources, so it is highly desireable to resolve the uncertainties regarding its emission.

#### 2.3.1 Spatial uniformity

In Figure 2$`ae`$, we show the spatial distribution of elemental abundances across the sightlines for our stationary observations of DEM L199. Figure 2$`f`$ shows the corresponding distribution in $`T`$\[O III\] measurements. For DEM L243, DEM L301, and DEM L323, we show in Figures 35 the results for He, N, and O, as representative of the other elements. These are shown respectively in panels $`a,b`$, and $`c`$; and panels $`d`$ show corresponding measurements of $`T`$\[O III\]. The different symbols correspond to individual slit positions as designated in Paper I (Figures 6, 8, 12, and 13), to aid cross-referencing. Following our convention in that work, we simply show the slit positions superposed, therefore these figures will not necessarily show clean radial profiles across the nebulae, although they do approximate this reasonably well. This issue may be inspected in Paper I, along with actual slit positions. The light, horizontal lines indicate the spatial extent of each extracted aperture, while the vertical error bars indicate uncertainties in the derived measurements.

In Figure 3, DEM L243 shows much larger scatter and uncertainty among the individual apertures, which can be attributed to the large measurement uncertainties for $`T`$\[O III\] (Figure 3$`d`$). There is also an SNR either embedded or superimposed in the line of sight to this object, but we have not included the affected apertures in our abundance estimates or in Figure 3. Assuming an essentially constant metallicity in DEM L243, we recomputed the abundances by fixing $`T`$(O++) to be the mean $`T`$\[O III\], using the same weighting and omitting the same deviant values as before, in computing the mean abundances. Figure 6 and Table 3 show the results using the new $`T`$(O++)$`=`$9700 K. The dramatic reduction in scatter for the heavy elements suggests that the original scatter in Figure 3 may indeed be caused by poor measurements in $`T`$\[O III\]. However, we emphasize a point by Mathis, Chu, & Peterson (1985), that true abundance fluctuations will induce corresponding fluctuations in $`T_e`$, owing to the more efficient cooling accompanying higher O/H. The reduced scatter with a fixed $`T_e`$ is therefore not a strong demonstration of truly constant abundances. To further test consistency with constant abundance distributions, we computed the reduced-$`\chi ^2`$ statistics for the original distribution, yielding 1.4 and 1.8 for log(N/H) and log(O/H), respectively. The probabilities of obtaining these values for 12 degrees of freedom are 16% and 4%, respectively. These values therefore hint that the scatter may in part be caused by real variations, although the significance is low.

In the event that the abundances for DEM L243 are essentially constant, the mean values obtained with fixed $`T`$\[O III\] should give a better estimate than the original values (Table 3). However, we caution that there is systematic uncertainty introduced by the adopted value of $`T`$(O++); comparison to the original mean abundances in Table 3 suggests the uncertainty is roughly 0.1 dex in the derived metallicities. Since the recombination lines used to determine log(He/H) are less temperature-sensitive than the collisional metal lines, log(He/H) (Figure 6$`a`$) still shows larger scatter than exhibited in the other objects. However, note that the magnitude of the variation is only $`0.3`$ dex. As discussed in Paper I, the He I $`\lambda `$5876/H$`\beta `$ ratios suggest that He is not uniformly fully ionized in DEM L243, therefore causing log(He/H) to be underestimated in many apertures. Our value for the He abundance is therefore a lower limit in this object. The upper envelope to the distribution in Figure 6$`a`$ is around log(He/H) $`1.1`$, which may be more indicative of the true He abundance. This value is more consistent with those for the other objects (Table 3).

Thus, in Figures 25 the abundances appear to show no spatial variations within the measurement uncertainties, with standard deviations typically around 0.10 – 0.15 dex. The uniformity of the abundance derivations is reassuring, and suggests that our adopted ionic relations (§2.2) and description of the nebular temperature structure (equation 3) yield abundance estimates with high accuracy. The apparent success of these methods is consistent with the finding by Mathis (1985) that ICFs for model nebulae appear fairly robust between volume averaged and radially averaged regions. The uniformity of results for apertures tracing different parts of the same nebula further suggests that spurious “pencil-beam” effects resulting from projection of radial $`T_e`$ gradients (Gruenwald & Viegas 1992) are negligible for our objects. This is consistent with the fact that sources in our sample have $`T`$\[O III\] restricted to the approximate range 9500 – 12,000 K, for which the nebulae are expected to be relatively isothermal (equation 3; Figure 1). We emphasize that this propitious circumstance may not apply to other H ii regions, that may exhibit stronger $`T_e`$ gradients; as an example, Walter, Dufour, & Hester (1992) reported a significant $`T_e`$ gradient in the Orion nebula, although their spatial scale of 0.5 pc is almost an order of magnitude smaller than is relevant for our objects in the present study. As in §2.1 above, we again emphasize the importance of choosing the correct parameterization for the $`T_e`$ structure.

#### 2.3.2 Search for self-enrichment

It is especially interesting to examine DEM L199 for possible abundance variations that are introduced by the three WR stars. Two of these are binaries with a WN3 component (Breysacher 1981) and one is a WC4 + O6 V-III binary (Moffat et al. 1990). The exact location of these stars with respect to the nebular gas distribution and slit positions may be examined in Paper I. We emphasize that DEM L199 is not a WR ejecta shell, but is a large, luminous H ii complex whose dominant ionizing stars are early WR stars. Walsh & Roy (1989) and Kobulnicky et al. (1997) identified two regions in the starburst galaxy NGC 5253 that appear to show enhanced N, which is suggested to result from self-enrichment by WR stars. Kobulnicky et al. (1997) point out that accompanying He enrichment would be expected from the WR sources, and acknowledge that the lack of He excess in these objects is puzzling.

DEM L199 has three WR stars within a large central cavity in a luminous H ii region. It would seem likely that, if self-enrichment from WR stars can be seen, it should be detected in our observations. In Figure 2, we indicate six apertures that are closest to the stars Br 32 (WC4) and Br 33 (WN3), with solid dots. These apertures are identified in Paper I as: D199.205-15, 16, and 17; and D199.205N120-17, 18, and 19. The characteristic physical distances from the WR stars are about 5 – 15 pc. Figure 2 shows that these points do not show any sign of abundance enhancements. Results from the full set of aperture measurements for DEM L199 are consistent with uniform abundances at the 90% confidence level, as indicated by reduced-$`\chi ^2`$ values of 0.59 and 0.60, for log(N/H) and log(O/H) respectively, with 17 degrees of freedom. For He, in particular, the variation is constrained to be $`0.1`$ dex. Although abundance enhancements are seen in WR ejecta nebulae, our data suggest that self-enrichment by WR stars can be an extremely subtle phenomenon. It is possible that the processed material is heated to coronal temperatures within the superbubble and is thus optically undetectable. Alternatively, the WR phase in these stars may not yet have lasted long enough to produce significant enrichment in the surrounding environment.

We were also interested to see whether the SNR in DEM L243 showed evidence of abundance anomalies. Abundance estimates from SNRs are necessarily more uncertain, owing to the more complicated radiative transfer, but meaningful estimates have been made by, e.g., Russell & Dopita (1990). These are based on matching the emission-line spectra with a shock code. In Paper I, we were able to find excellent agreement between Mappings shock models and the observed emission from the shock-affected apertures, using the abundances derived from the uncontaminated regions of the nebula listed in Table 3. The SNR therefore shows no evidence of abundance anomalies, although strong emission from photoionized gas in the same line of sight prevents strong constraints.

Likewise, the superbubble DEM L301 shows strong evidence of a recent SNR impact (Chu & Mac Low 1990; Oey 1996b; Paper I), and thus could conceivably show enrichment by massive star winds and supernova ejecta. However, its elemental abundances are often lower than for the other objects in the sample (Table 3). We caution that shock-excitation can significantly affect the abundance determinations for this object (Paper I). Peimbert, Sarmiento, & Fierro (1991) showed that contamination by shock activity can cause abundances to be underestimated, especially for higher-ionization species. Our measurements for DEM L301 are consistent with this behavior, although in §2.3.3 we find that the metallicities for DEM L243 do not appear strongly affected by SNR contamination.

#### 2.3.3 Spatially integrated abundances
and LMC metallicities

We also derived abundances for the scanned, spatially integrated apertures using the same methods. These are presented in Table 4, along with mean LMC H ii region abundances from compilations by Dufour (1984). A more recent compilation by Garnett (1999) shows essentially the same values. Within the uncertainties, the mean abundances for each object from Table 3 agree with the determinations from the spatially integrated observations (Table 4), although the offsets appear to be systematic across all elements for each object. This again points to uncertainties in the $`T`$(O++) determination, which can result from simple measurement errors, or factors related to the spatial integration of the line emission. We regard the values obtained from the mean of the spatially resolved data (Table 3) to be more reliable than the single observations from the integrated data. However, we caution that the ionic relations in §2.2 are based on spatially integrated models and observations, and this could introduce systematic variations between the spatially resolved and scanned data. But taking the derived values and uncertainties at face value, the mean abundances of the stationary apertures should be somewhat more reliable.

We include in Table 4 the abundances for DEM L243 derived from both the total, scanned observation and the scanned observation with the SNR-contaminated region subtracted. Interestingly, there is no significant difference between these, although the data including the SNR do show the expected decrease in computed abundances (Peimbert et al. 1991). Thus, while DEM L301 showed suspiciously low metallicity measurements attributable to effects of shock emission, DEM L243 is an example where the SNR is not a significant factor. In Paper I, we also found that the two shock-affected objects exhibit different behavior in their line emission with respect to the photoionized regions, thereby demonstrating how shocks contribute in different ways to the spectra of host H ii regions, depending on shock velocity and environment.

We find a tendency for our measurements to be $`0.2`$ dex lower than the mean LMC metal abundances compiled by Dufour (1984). One of the probable causes is our adopted temperature structure (equation 3), which varies slightly from those used by others. For example, we find that our mean abundances for DEM L243 would increase by about 0.1 dex if we adopted the relation of Campbell et al. (1986) at all values of $`T`$(O++).

Our data are generally consistent with there being no abundance variations between the four different H ii regions. It is interesting to note that DEM L199 is close to the LMC bar, about 1 kpc from the center of the galaxy; and DEM L243 is situated in the northern outskirts of the LMC-4 supergiant shell, at a galactocentric radius of $``$3.5 kpc. Pagel et al. (1978) have suggested that the LMC H ii regions possibly exhibit a slight abundance gradient. This has not been further examined, nor has a gradient been detected in the cluster population (Olszewski et al. 1991). In our data, it is suggestive that DEM L199 and DEM L243 delineate the extremes of any interpreted variation among our four objects. The difference in metallicity is consistent with the small gradient suggested by Pagel et al. (1978).

## 3. Semi-empirical bright-line methods

We turn now to examining more indirect emission-line diagnostics of metal abundances. In situations where $`T_e`$ cannot be adequately constrained by observation, it is common practice to estimate the metal abundances using the semi-empirical, “bright-line” abundance parameters. Here we examine the performance of these parameters in light of our detailed nebular data and highly-constrained, tailored photoionization models from Paper I.

We also compute model tracks of the abundance parameters, using Mappings II with generalized nebular parameters. These incorporate the stellar energy distribution of CoStar model C2 (Schaerer & de Koter 1997), which corresponds to an O6 – O7 stellar effective temperature. We assume an inner radius to the gas distribution of 0.4$`R_\mathrm{S}`$, and gas density $`n=10\mathrm{cm}^3`$. In the figures that follow, the dashed, solid, and dotted lines correspond to the volume-averaged $`\mathrm{log}U=2,3,`$ and $`4`$, respectively, which is equivalent to changing the total ionizing photon emission rate or gas filling factor.

The grid of models is computed with $`Z=0.05,`$ 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 times $`\mathrm{Z}_{}`$. We included the elements (He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ar, Ca, and Fe) with $`\mathrm{Z}_{}=(1.01,3.44,3.95,3.07,3.91,4.42,`$ $`5.53,4.45,4.79,5.44,5.88`$, and –4.96), respectively. We largely follow McGaugh (1991) in scaling the abundances of individual elements with respect to O. For He and N, we use the relations given by McGaugh, but scaled to match the Anders & Grevesse (1989) values for $`\mathrm{Z}_{}`$:

$$\mathrm{He}/\mathrm{H}=0.0850+15(\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H})$$
(11)
and

$$\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{N}/\mathrm{H})=1.5\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H})+0.66.$$
(12)
For C and Fe, we adopt McGaugh’s relations directly (his equations 10 and 11). The remainder of the elements are fixed in their proportion to O at $`\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, as given by Anders & Grevesse. Models for $`\mathrm{Z}_{}`$ and $`2\mathrm{Z}_{}`$ use the CoStar C2 atmosphere at solar metallicity, while the rest use the corresponding SMC metallicity model; we find that the stellar metallicity is unimportant for these $`U`$-tracks.

### 3.1. $`R23`$

The O abundance parameter $`R23`$ (Pagel et al. 1979; equation 1 above), has been extensively used and empirically calibrated several times, by McGaugh (1991), Skillman (1989), and Dopita & Evans (1986), among others. In Figure 7$`a`$, we show log(O/H) vs. $`\mathrm{log}R23`$, with the tracks showing results from generalized photoionization models described above. Our assumptions differ somewhat from those of previous studies, in particular with the assumption of a fairly hollow morphology and new stellar atmosphere models. Most authors (e.g., McGaugh 1991; Dopita & Evans 1986) also assume some anticorrelation between the characteristic $`T_{}`$ or $`U`$, and $`Z`$, in their adopted calibration at high abundance. Our tracks do not assume this anticorrelation. Despite these differences, our tracks remain similar to those of previous authors, although our models show a slight offset to higher log(O/H) (see Kobulnicky et al. 1999 and McGaugh 1991 for comparisons of $`R23`$ calibrations).

We also plot in Figure 7$`a`$ the spatially integrated data for our objects, using the abundances derived from the means of our resolved apertures (Table 3). The values of $`R23`$ are computed in Paper I and shown here in Table 5. We caution that the nebular fractional area included in the spatial scans varies among the four objects, and we refer the reader to Paper I for the precise details. The three spatial scans of the spherical object DEM L323 (triangles) should give an indication of the degree to which subsampling is representative of the total spatial scan (solid triangle). The three measurements of $`R23`$ are in excellent agreement, which is consistent with our finding in Paper I that this index is robust to spatial variations. For DEM L243, we show $`R23`$ derived from the spectrum with the SNR-contaminated region subtracted (solid diamond); and also that from the total integrated region including the SNR (open diamond). The square and cross show DEM L199 and DEM L301, respectively.

Our data points are generally well-behaved with respect to the model tracks in Figure 7$`a`$. While we found excellent agreement between the observed emission-line spectra and our tailored photoionization models in Paper I, we see in Figure 7$`a`$ that most of the objects fall in their expected location with respect to the more generalized model tracks. DEM L323, DEM L243, and DEM L199 fall between tracks of $`\mathrm{log}U=3`$ and $`4`$, with DEM L199 showing the highest value of $`U`$, as expected in this high-excitation object. The one anomalous point is DEM L301 (cross), which we found in Paper I to have an unusual combination of excitation mechanisms. We concluded that this object, which has an extreme shell morphology, is most likely ionized by a combination of density-bounded photoionization plus shocks. While our tailored model for this object reproduced the observed $`R23`$ well, it is apparent that its value is anomalously high with respect to the tracks in Figure 7$`a`$. Ironically, the offset is in the sense of a higher ionization parameter, although the object in fact has a much lower $`U`$ than the others in the sample. The larger value of $`R23`$ is probably caused by the enhanced emission contributed by the shock activity. DEM L301 and DEM L199 have similar values of $`R23`$, which, lacking any additional information for these objects, would imply similar abundances; we see that in fact this would overestimate log(O/H) for DEM L301 by about 0.3 dex, taking the measured log(O/H) at face value.

We also overplot with small plus signs in Figure 7$`a`$ the data compiled by Díaz & Pérez-Montero (2000). These represent data from the literature (their Table 2) for which abundances were derived from a direct measurement of $`T`$\[O III\]. Although the points for our data from Paper I are consistent with the model tracks, it is apparent that the photoionization models in Figure 7$`a`$ do not track well the locus of the larger dataset. It is important to note that adopting softer stellar atmospheres can improve the correspondence slightly, since this would offset the tracks to slightly lower log(O/H). We refer the reader to McGaugh (1991) to evaluate the consequences of the stellar effective temperature. The atmospheres adopted here (CoStar C2) correspond to O6 – O7 stars, which are already cooler than most of our LMC objects, and only relatively small changes result if O3 – O4 atmospheres (CoStar E2) are used instead. The discrepancy between models and data has always been a difficulty in the use of $`R23`$, and therefore empirical calibrations of this parameter have been crucial for its successful use.

### 3.2. $`S23`$

As mentioned earlier, a parameter similar to $`R23`$ has been introduced for S by Vílchez & Esteban (1996) and Christensen et al. (1997), which was further explored by Díaz & Pérez-Montero (2000, hereafter DPM). It is important to note that this parameter, $`S23`$ (equation 2), is not strictly analogous to $`R23`$. While O and S have homologous energy levels, the ionization potentials (IP) for their respective ions are different. In particular, it is important to note that the IP required to reach S+3 (34.83 eV) is virtually identical to that necessary for O++ (35.12 eV). Therefore, although S+ and S++ are indeed the dominant ions for S, for typical H ii regions, there is likely to be non-negligible S+3, which is ionized by the same radiation that produces O++. Although Christensen et al. (1997) pointed out that the ionization fraction of S+3 is relatively small, typically $`0.2`$, we show below that it nevertheless significantly affects the ionization balance of S+ and S++, and consequently, the value of $`S23`$.

Figure 7$`b`$ is similar to panel $`a`$, now showing $`\mathrm{log}`$ (S/H) vs $`\mathrm{log}S23`$ (Table 5). The model line types and data symbols are the same as before. It is immediately apparent that, contrary to earlier claims in the literature, $`S23`$ is more sensitive to the ionization parameter than $`R23`$. The change in $`\mathrm{log}S23`$ between the model tracks, varying $`\mathrm{log}U`$ from –2 to –4, is almost 0.5 dex, whereas it is less than 0.3 dex for $`R23`$. The greater $`U`$-sensitivity of $`S23`$ is caused by the “missing” contribution of S IV. Figure 7$`b`$ shows that the models with high $`U`$ show lower $`\mathrm{log}S23`$, the opposite pattern to $`R23`$. This is consistent with the ionization behavior of S, since a larger population of S+3 is expected at higher $`U`$.

As suggested by DPM, the lower-metallicity branch of $`S23`$ does span a larger range in values than $`R23`$, for a given range of $`Z`$ (Figure 7). However, the location of the inflection at the maximum $`S23`$ is at only a slightly higher $`Z`$ than that for $`R23`$. Figure 7 shows that our models for $`\mathrm{log}R23`$ have a maximum close to $`Z=0.3\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, and those for $`\mathrm{log}S23`$ have a maximum around $`Z=0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$. Thus, there is only $`0.2`$ dex extension in the dynamic range of $`Z`$ in the use of $`S23`$. Nevertheless, since so many of the observed objects in the literature have abundances around $`0.30.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, this augmentation makes a substantial difference in evaluating abundances. As is dramatically shown in Figure 1 of DPM, $`S23`$ empirically shows an evidently monotonic increase as a function of $`Z`$, in contrast to $`R23`$, which shows a distinct double-valued structure in $`Z`$.

Our data points are again reasonably consistent with the models in Figure 7, although they now perhaps show a tendency to fall between the $`\mathrm{log}U=2`$ and $`3`$ models, rather than –3 to –4 for Figure 7$`a`$. The tailored photoionization models and spatially-resolved data in Paper I showed similar minor discrepancies. The data points for the shock-affected regions, DEM L301 (cross) and the SNR-contaminated observation for DEM L243 (open diamond) are offset to higher $`\mathrm{log}S23`$. This suggests that $`S23`$ is increased by the presence of shock excitation, similar to the behavior of $`R23`$ found in the previous section.

We also see in Figure 7$`b`$ that the photoionization models do track the data well for $`S23`$, and much better than for $`R23`$ in panel $`a`$. However, it is also apparent that the points with the highest values of $`S23`$ fall outside the model tracks. In formulating a calibration for $`S23`$, we would therefore recommend that these values be excluded, and that the empirical calibration derived by DPM should not be used for $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$.

### 3.3. $`S234`$

As discussed in the previous section, the population of S+3, which is ionized by the same radiation as that ionizing O++, is not sampled by the $`S23`$ parameter. While the ionization fraction of S+3 is relatively small, we have seen in the previous section that it significantly compromises the utility of $`S23`$ as an abundance diagnostic. We therefore suggest that the parameter,

$$S234\frac{[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{II}]\lambda 6724+[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{III}]\lambda \lambda 9069,9532+[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{IV}]\lambda 10.5\mu }{\mathrm{H}\beta }$$
(13)
is a better abundance indicator than $`S23`$. In the same way that $`R23`$ samples all significant ions of O, $`S234`$ more completely samples the significant ions of S. Note that any population of S+4 (IP 47.30 eV) will be an insignificant fraction of the total S ions, for massive star sources: S+4/S $`0.02`$ even for an object ionized by a WR star where $`\mathrm{He}^{++}/\mathrm{He}=0.4`$. The principal difficulty with $`S234`$ is the inclusion of the mid-IR line \[S IV\]$`\lambda 10.5\mu `$, which is not readily observable with standard ground-based instrumentation. However, since the IP necessary to produce S+3 is virtually the same as that for O++, it is possible to estimate the abundance of S+3 based on that for O++. This was demonstrated earlier by Mathis (1982) and Dennefeld & Stasińska (1983). We present this approach here.

Figure 8 presents $`\mathrm{log}`$ (S/H) vs. $`S234`$, on the same scale as that for $`S23`$ in Figure 7$`b`$. The line types and symbols are the same as before. We see that $`S234`$ is dramatically less sensitive to the ionization parameter, owing to the inclusion of the S IV indicator. Indeed, the models for $`S234`$ are even less sensitive to $`U`$ than is $`R23`$ (Figure 7$`a`$), for $`Z\mathrm{Z}_{}`$.

It would therefore be desireable to estimate the intensity of \[S IV\]$`\lambda 10.5\mu `$ from that of the O ionization indicator, \[O III\]/\[O II\]. Figure 9 shows log(\[S IV\]$`\lambda 10.5\mu `$/\[S III\]$`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$9069,9532) vs. log(\[O III\]$`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$4959,5007/\[O II\]$`\lambda `$3727) for models with an E2 CoStar atmosphere, and line types as before. This atmosphere corresponds to an O3 – O4 stellar type, and we prefer this model in examining the relation between S IV and other ions since it is more relevant in environments with harder ionizing fields. We see that for $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$ (solid points), the relation between these ratios is essentially a simple power law. For these points, we fit:

$$\mathrm{log}\frac{[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{IV}]\lambda 10.5\mu }{[\mathrm{S}\mathrm{III}]\lambda \lambda 9069,9532}=0.984+1.276\mathrm{log}\frac{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]\lambda \lambda 4959,5007}{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{II}]\lambda 3727},$$
(14)
which is shown by the dot-dashed line in Figure 9.

With observations of \[S III\], this relation allows an estimate of the \[S IV\] intensity, which can then be used to compute $`S234`$. We note that the adoption of the cooler C2 CoStar atmospheres, used in our other photoionization models, would result in a difference of less than 0.02 and 0.01 in the fitted intercept and slope, respectively. Furthermore, the correction for \[S IV\] will only be significant for moderate to high $`U`$ and/or high $`Z`$. As a test of equation 14, we use mid-infrared and optical line observations of the Orion nebula by Lester, Dinerstein, & Rank (1979). For their measurements, equation 14 predicts a volume emissivity for \[S IV\]$`\lambda `$10.5$`\mu `$ of $`6.5\pm 2.7\times 10^{21}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^6\mathrm{s}^1`$, which agrees within measurement uncertainties with the observed value of $`9.0\pm 2.7\times 10^{21}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^6\mathrm{s}^1`$. Considering the extremely narrow, 10$`\mathrm{}`$ line of sight on the Orion nebula, and much higher density ($`10^4\mathrm{cm}^3`$) than considered for our purposes, this agreement is highly encouraging.

It is thus relatively simple to convert from $`S23`$ into $`S234`$ and thereby almost eliminate the sensitivity to $`U`$. We used this method of estimating \[S IV\] to compute $`S234`$ for our spatially-integrated observations (Table 5), which are plotted in Figure 8, using the same symbols as before. In the errors for $`S234`$, we include in quadrature an uncertainty of 25% for the uncertainty of \[S IV\] from equation 14. We again have excellent agreement with the models. It is clear that $`Z`$ can be estimated with greater confidence based on $`S234`$ than $`S23`$ at these metallicities, because the large spread in the models for $`S23`$ (Figure 7$`b`$) has been vastly reduced for $`S234`$.

Similarly, we show in Figure 10 that spatial variations are also reduced from $`S23`$ to $`S234`$. Figures 10$`a`$ and $`b`$ show our spatially resolved observations of DEM L199 for $`S23`$ and $`S234`$. The solid line indicates the tailored model for this object, using the early WR model of Schmutz et al. (1992; see Paper I), central hole radius of 0.5$`R_\mathrm{S}`$, and gas density $`n=100\mathrm{cm}^3`$. While Figure 10$`a`$ shows a large spatial variation of $`0.4`$ dex for $`S23`$, we see in Figure 10$`b`$ that the variation in $`S234`$ is reduced by about a factor of 2 in the logarithm. Figures 10$`ef`$ show the same behavior for DEM L323. The solid line again represents the corresponding tailored model, with an O3 – O4 stellar atmosphere (Costar E2), central hole radius of 0.4$`R_\mathrm{S}`$, and gas density $`n=10\mathrm{cm}^3`$. In Figure 10$`cd`$, we show the spatially resolved data for DEM L199 superimposed on the model tracks for $`S23`$ and $`S234`$, respectively. The reduced scatter in $`S234`$ against the models again demonstrates the improved constraints in estimating log(S/H), compared to $`S23`$.

### 3.4. Calibrations

In Figure 11$`a`$ and $`b`$ we show the models for $`\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{H})`$ as a function of $`S23`$ and $`S234`$, overplotted with the Galactic and LMC data presented by Dennefeld & Stasińska (1983). Their S abundances are computed from measurements of $`T`$\[O III\] and observations of \[S III\]$`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$9069,9532. We compute $`S234`$ from this dataset with the aid of equation 14, as described above. Figure 11 shows that the data present a well-defined sequence in both $`S23`$ and $`S234`$. It is especially encouraging that the locus of the models is in excellent agreement with that of the data, in contrast with the situation for $`R23`$, as we saw above in Figure 7$`a`$. We replot the $`R23`$ models with the Dennefeld & Stasińska data in Figure 11$`c`$, again suggesting the same discrepancy seen earlier. It is apparent that for these data, the values of $`R23`$ are fairly insensitive to log(O/H) as we saw before, owing to the location of the inflection and spread in $`U`$.

To estimate a theoretical calibration for $`S23`$, we take the mean of the three models at each metallicity, up to $`0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$. A resulting power-law fit is shown by the lighter, straight, solid line in Figure 11$`a`$. For $`S23`$, we obtain:

$$\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{H})=5.43+1.33\mathrm{log}S23.$$
(15)
The light dash-dot and dashed lines in Figure 11$`a`$ show the DPM and Christensen et al. (1997) calibrations, respectively. DPM calibrated a relation for log(O/H) vs. $`S23`$, so we used the solar S/O ratio to convert their relation to a calibration of log(S/H). It is apparent that all three calibrations are similar. The DPM relation shows the best correspondence to the data, as is expected since it is fitted to the largest dataset. It is especially encouraging that our theoretical relation is intermediate between the two empirical ones, confirming that the theoretical calibration is fully consistent with the available data. However, in using any of these $`S23`$ calibrations, it is important to bear in mind that the models predict a double-valued relation around $`\mathrm{log}S230.0`$.

We use the same procedure to fit a theoretical calibration for $`S234`$ and obtain:

$$\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{H})=5.58+1.27\mathrm{log}\mathrm{S234}.$$
(16)
As in the case for $`S23`$, the data are in excellent agreement with this rough theoretical fit, shown by the light, solid line in Figure 11$`b`$.

We again emphasize that, although the data at $`Z>0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$ are consistent with the calibrations for both $`S23`$ and $`S234`$, they strongly diverge from the models in that regime, and that a power-law approximation is necessarily crude near these values. We therefore consider the calibrations reliable only for $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, and extreme caution should be exercised in extrapolating at higher metallicity. It is also essential to note that the double-valued nature of all of these abundance parameters still remains an issue.

In Figure 11$`d`$, we show the measured log(O/H) vs. $`\mathrm{log}S234`$ for the Dennefeld & Stasińska sample, where log(O/H) are again derived from direct measurements of $`T`$\[O III\]. We see that the scatter is much larger than for log(S/H) vs. $`\mathrm{log}S234`$ (Figure 11$`b`$). Although Garnett (1989), among others, suggests that there is no systematic variation in S/O with O/H, Figure 11 shows that there is still significant variation in the S/O ratio among the different objects. Therefore, while $`S234`$ appears reasonably reliable for estimating the S abundance, it appears to be significantly less reliable for inferring the O abundance, and caution should be exercised accordingly.

## 4. Conclusion

We have carried out a detailed investigation of elemental abundance derivations using four H ii regions in the LMC. We use tailored photoioinzation models to examine standard abundance analyses based on measured values of $`T_e`$. Our data (Paper I) are derived from both spatially-resolved observations extracted from stationary long slit positions, and scanned, spatially-integrated slit observations. We also examine the bright-line abundance diagnostics for O and S, in light of the direct abundance determinations and photoionization models.

Our abundance determinations are based on measurements of $`T`$\[O III\], which we take to represent $`T`$(O++), and we assume a two-zone temperature structure for the nebulae, represented by $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$(O+). We use standard ionic abundance relations to then determine the total elemental abundances for He, N, O, Ne, S, and Ar, with respect to H. Comparison with tailored Mappings photoionization models highlights the importance of choosing a relation between $`T`$(O++) and $`T`$(O+) that adequately represents the nebular temperature structure. Failure to do so can result in metallicity estimates that are discrepant by at least 0.2 dex from values indicated by tailored photoionization models.

Abundance measurements for the stationary slit positions show high spatial uniformity, with no evidence of variations or gradients to within 0.1 – 0.15 dex. Thus it is unlikely that there are systematic biases resulting from the strong ionization gradients seen in these objects. The adopted two-zone $`T_e`$ structure therefore appears to be highly reliable for estimating ionic abundance estimates even through “pencil-beam” apertures that sample only a small nebular area, at least for our fairly isothermal H ii regions.

No areas of local enrichment were detected in DEM L199, in spite of the presence of two WN3 stars and one WC4 star. The stellar products may be hidden in hot, coronal gas within the central superbubble, or the stars may not have produced enough enriched material to be readily detectable. The results show that self-enrichment by WR stars is likely to be a complex phenomenon, empirically. DEM L243 and DEM L301, both showing evidence of recent SNR activity, also do not show local enrichments, although with poorer constraints.

Abundance measurements from the scanned, spatially integrated apertures are consistent with those obtained from the spatially resolved observations. Our results are $`0.2`$ dex lower than average LMC H ii region measurements (Dufour 1984; Garnett 1999), probably resulting in part from different descriptions for the $`T_e`$ structure. The spatially-integrated measurements are also consistent with there being no variation between the four H ii regions, although, interestingly, they are also consistent with the marginal abundance gradient suggested by Pagel et al. (1978). While the presence of the SNR in DEM L243 did not affect the resulting abundances from the spatially integrated observation, the derived abundances for DEM L301 are on the low end of the distribution, hinting at spurious effects caused by the shock activity in that superbubble.

We computed the $`R23`$ O abundance parameters (Pagel et al. 1979) for the spatially integrated data, and compared these with model tracks constructed with Mappings. The models assume the Costar C2 (Schaerer & de Koter 1997) stellar atmosphere corresponding to an O6 – O7 spectral type, and an inner nebular radius of 0.4 $`R_\mathrm{S}`$. As has historically been the case, the models do not agree well with the locus of observations in the literature, although our LMC data do agree well, coincidentally, with both.

Similarly, we examined the $`S23`$ abundance parameter for S (e.g., Christensen et al. 1997; Díaz & Pérez-Montero 2000). Our models reveal that, contrary to previous suggestions, $`S23`$ is more sensitive to the ionization parameter than is $`R23`$. S IV is produced by the same radiation that ionizes O III, and is a significant ion of S in many H ii regions, but it is not sampled by $`S23`$. Its omission therefore causes $`S23`$ to be much more sensitive to $`U`$ than $`R23`$. The spatially resolved observations confirm this by showing, in agreement with model predictions, lower values of $`S23`$ in the central nebular regions where S IV is important. As shown in Paper I, this spatial variation is not predicted or observed in $`R23`$.

Our models also suggest that the maximum in $`S23`$ occurs at only $`0.2`$ dex higher in $`Z`$ than in $`R23`$. Nevertheless, this appears to significantly alleviate the effect of the double-valued structure of log(S/H) vs $`S23`$ when inferring abundances, as shown by Díaz & Pérez-Montero (2000). It is highly encouraging that the data, both from our sample and from the literature, are in excellent agreement with the models, in contrast to the behavior of $`R23`$. We offer a theoretical calibration of $`S23`$ (equation 15) which appears to be fully compatible with the data in the literature thus far. However, we caution that the locus of the available data may well be deceptive in suggesting that a power-law relation can be used at $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$.

To overcome the limitations of $`S23`$ in $`U`$-sensitivity and spatial variation, we introduce a similar S abundance parameter, $`S234`$. This is the same as $`S23`$ with the added emission of \[S IV\]$`\lambda `$10.5$`\mu `$. Although this mid-IR line is not readily observable with most conventional ground-based spectrographs, it is straightforward to estimate its intensity from the simple correspondence between \[S IV\]/\[S III\] and \[O III\]/\[O II\] (equation 14). Our models show that $`S234`$ is less dependent on $`U`$ than is even $`R23`$. $`S234`$ for our objects and for the larger sample of Dennefeld & Stasińska (1983) are in excellent agreement with the models. Likewise, the spatial variations for both models and observations are dramatically reduced for $`S234`$ in contrast to $`S23`$. We provide a theoretical calibration for log(S/H) vs $`S234`$ at $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$ (equation 16).

Finally, we reiterate some caveats for the use of $`R23`$, $`S23`$, and $`S234`$. We find that the presence of shock excitation increases the value of these parameters; for our objects, the effect is about 0.1 dex in magnitude. Secondly, significant variations in the S/O ratio dictate caution in inferring O abundances using $`S234`$ and $`S23`$ (Figure 11). It is also important to bear in mind the double-valued structure for all three of these parameters. Lastly, we emphasize the deviation between the data and models above $`0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$, and we therefore consider the calibrations presented thus far for $`S23`$ and $`S234`$ to be reliable only for $`Z0.5\mathrm{Z}_{}`$. Further empirical investigation is needed to understand the behavior of these parameters at higher metallicity. Bearing in mind these caveats, the excellent correspondence between the modeled $`S234`$, $`S23`$, and the available data, together with the more highly monotonic behavior of these parameters, promises greater effectiveness as metallicity indicators than $`R23`$. With improving access to the \[S IV\]$`\lambda `$10.5$`\mu `$ line, it should be possible to confirm the behavior of $`S234`$ directly.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge discussions with Mike Dopita, Annette Ferguson, Don Garnett, Dick Shaw, Evan Skillman, Elena Terlevich, and Bob Williams. We are also grateful to Mike Dopita for access to the Mappings II photoionization code and to Angelez Díaz for access to her work in advance of publication. Finally, we are pleased to acknowledge the referee, Bernard Pagel.


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# Testing the AdS/CFT correspondence beyond large N

## 1 Introduction

We begin by briefly reviewing some relevant basic aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence , see in particular .

Consider type IIB string theory with a number $`N`$ of D3 branes. There are open strings ending on these D3 branes and closed strings in the bulk. The effective low energy action consists of IIB supergravity describing the bulk closed strings, and $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric $`\mathrm{U}(N)`$ gauge theory (SYM) describing the open strings ending on the D3 branes. The gauge group of the latter actually is $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ since the $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$ decouples. Considering low energies at fixed $`\alpha ^{}`$ is equivalent to fixed energy and taking the $`\alpha ^{}0`$ limit. In this limit the gravitational coupling $`\kappa g_s\alpha ^2`$ vanishes and the interactions between the branes and the bulk can be neglected, as well as all higher derivative terms in the brane action. Only free bulk supergravity and pure $`𝒩=4`$ $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ SYM in $`d=4`$ dimensions remain. The latter is a conformal field theory (CFT).

There is a different way to describe the same physics. D3 branes may be viewed as certain solutions of the supergravity field equations, namely

$`\mathrm{d}s^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{f}}}\left(\mathrm{d}t^2+\mathrm{d}x_1^2+\mathrm{d}x_2^2+\mathrm{d}x_3^2\right)`$
$`+\sqrt{f}\left(\mathrm{d}r^2+r^2\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_5^2\right),`$
$`f=1+{\displaystyle \frac{R^4}{r^4}},R^4=4\pi g_s\alpha ^2N.`$ (1)
Here $`t,x_1,x_2,x_3`$ are the longitudinal coordinates (on the D3) while $`r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_5`$ describe the transverse space. $`N`$ is the number of (coincident) D3 branes. There is also a five-form field strength $`F`$ which is proportional to $`N`$. Again, one wants to study the low energy excitations in this description and compare with the first one. Due to the non-trivial function $`f(r)`$ in the metric there is a red-shift factor between energies measured at $`r`$ and energies measured at $`r=\mathrm{}`$:

$$E_{\mathrm{}}=f^{1/4}E_r=\left(1+\frac{R^4}{r^4}\right)^{1/4}E_r.$$
(2)
One sees that if $`r0`$, $`E_{\mathrm{}}0`$ for any finite $`E_r`$. So there are two types of low energy excitations: low energy at finite $`r`$ (bulk) or finite energy near the horizon ($`r=0`$), and the two types decouple yielding (free) bulk supergravity and near horizon supergravity. Concentrate on the near horizon limit: as $`r0`$ one has $`f\frac{R^4}{r^4}`$. Since also $`\alpha ^{}0`$, it is convenient to introduce the finite quantity $`u=r/\alpha ^{}`$ so that the near horizon metric becomes

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha ^{}}}\mathrm{d}s^2=\lambda ^{1/2}u^2\left(\mathrm{d}t^2+\mathrm{d}x_1^2+\mathrm{d}x_2^2+\mathrm{d}x_3^2\right)`$
$`+\lambda ^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}u^2}{u^2}}+\lambda ^{1/2}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_5^2,`$ (3)
where we introduced the finite quantity

$$\lambda =4\pi g_sN=\frac{R^4}{\alpha ^2}.$$
(4)
The metric (1) is the metric of $`AdS_5\times S^5`$.

Comparing both descriptions of the same physics one then is led to identify the conformally invariant, $`𝒩=4`$ $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ SYM theory in $`d=4`$ with the supergravity or small $`\alpha ^{}`$ limit of IIB string theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. We will be more precise shortly.

How do the different parameters on the SYM side compare to those of the supergravity/string theory? In the former we have the coupling $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}`$ and the integer $`N`$ determining the gauge group $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$. On the supergravity/string side we have $`\alpha ^{}`$ and $`R`$ (with only the dimensionless ratio $`R^2/\alpha ^{}`$ being a relevant parameter) and the coupling $`g_s`$. A first relation is already obtained in eq. (1), namely $`R^4=4\pi g_s\alpha ^2N`$ or equivalently eq. (4). A second relation is obtained from the D3 brane action from which one reads the YM coupling in terms of the string coupling. Thus

$$\frac{1}{g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}=\frac{1}{4\pi g_s}\mathrm{and}N=\frac{1}{4\pi g_s}\frac{R^4}{\alpha ^2}$$
(5)
expresses the SYM parameters $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}`$ and $`N`$ in terms of the string/supergravity parameters $`g_s`$ and $`R^2/\alpha ^{}`$ and vice versa. In large $`N`$ gauge theories the relevant loop-counting parameter is the ’t Hooft coupling $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2N`$ rather than $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2`$. Combining both eqs (5) yields $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2N=\frac{R^4}{\alpha ^2}`$ which by eq (4) is just the quantity called $`\lambda `$. It is useful to rewrite the relations between the parameters of the two descriptions as

$$\lambda =\frac{R^4}{\alpha ^2},\frac{N}{\lambda }=\frac{1}{4\pi g_s}$$
(6)
with $`\lambda `$ now meaning the ’t Hooft coupling.

Let us first comment on the first relation: perturbative SYM theory is a good description if the ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda `$ is small. Supergravity, rather than string theory, should be a good description if the radius of curvature of $`AdS_5`$ and $`S^5`$ is large, meaning $`R^2\alpha ^{}`$ or $`\lambda `$ large. The two regimes are opposite as is often the case with dualities. This of course avoids the obvious contradiction that both descriptions look so different.

At fixed ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda `$, the second relation (6) tells us that $`\frac{1}{N^2}`$ corresponds to the string loop-counting parameter $`g_s^2`$, so that the large $`N`$ limit of SYM corresponds to classical string theory (or classical supergravity if also $`\lambda 1`$), and $`\frac{1}{N^2}`$ corrections should correspond to one-loop effects in string theory.

One now has various possible conjectures: 1.) The weakest one is: SYM is dual to $`AdS`$ supergravity only for $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, but the full string theory is different. This version would not be very useful. 2.) The SYM theory is dual to string theory on $`AdS`$ for finite $`\lambda `$ but only as $`N\mathrm{}`$ or equivalently $`g_s0`$. This includes $`\alpha ^{}`$ corrections beyond the supergravity approximation, but no string loops. 3.) This is the strongest version, generally referred to as the Maldacena conjecture: the SYM theory is dual to string theory for all $`\lambda `$ and all $`N`$, i.e. all $`R^4/\alpha ^2`$ and $`g_s`$.

While there is now reasonable evidence for version 2.) of the conjecture (see e.g. ) the strong version 3.) is hard to test since standard string or supergravity loop computations on an $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ background are difficult, to say the least, if not unfeasible, with the present state of the art.

Many successful tests are group theoretic in nature. Some are not restricted to tree-level or even perturbation theory, but on the other hand they do not really provide any real test at one-loop. Examples are global symmetries (disregarding possible anomalies for the moment): $`AdS_5`$ space-time has an $`\mathrm{SO}(4,2)`$ symmetry which also is the conformal group of the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM theory. The “internal” symmetry is $`\mathrm{SO}(6)\mathrm{SU}(4)`$: this is the isometry of the $`S^5`$ as well as the R-symmetry of the SYM theory. The latter actually is anomalous which will be important for us. Both theories have the same amount of supersymmetry, the full supergroup being $`\mathrm{SU}(2,2|4)`$ $`\mathrm{SO}(4,2)\times \mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$. Also the duality symmetry $`\mathrm{SL}(2,𝐙)`$ is the same as it acts on

$$\tau =\frac{4\pi i}{g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}+\frac{\theta }{2\pi }=\frac{i}{g_s}+\frac{\chi }{2\pi }.$$
(7)
A promising arena for performing tests beyond the large $`N`$ limit or string tree-level is to look at certain anomalies. On the SYM side anomaly coefficients are easily established one-loop effects in $`\lambda `$ that are protected against higher order corrections. Typically such an anomaly coefficient will depend on the number of fermion fields in the SYM theory, i.e. on $`N`$. The goal then is to reproduce the exact $`N`$-dependence from the string theory including subleading terms $`\frac{1}{N^2}`$ coming from string loops. If we want to have any chance to be able to do this calculation, the relevant quantity to compute in string theory should be of a topological nature, like a Chern-Simons term, so that the actual metric on $`AdS_5`$ is irrelevant.

## 2 The chiral $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ anomaly in the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM

The anomaly we will consider is the chiral $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ anomaly. As already mentioned, $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ is a (classical) global symmetry of the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM theory. Due to the presence of chiral fermions transforming in complex conjugate representations of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ this symmetry is spoiled at one loop and there is an anomaly: the one-loop effective action in the presence of external $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ gauge fields is no longer invariant under $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ and the non-invariance is proportional to the number of fermions. Since they are also in the adjoint representation of the “true” gauge group $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ there are $`N^21`$ of them, and the anomaly is proportional to $`N^21`$. As we recall below, the leading term $`N^2`$ is accounted for by tree-level supergravity . It is the $`1`$ correction which should originate from a string/supergravity loop effect, and it indeed does as we showed in  and explain in the remainder of this paper.

Before explaining the string/supergravity loop correction let us review how the leading $`N^2`$ term is obtained in the string/supergravity description. Here $`\mathrm{SU}(4)\mathrm{SO}(6)`$ acts as an isometry on the $`S^5`$. As a consequence, the $`AdS_5`$ supergravity is actually a gauged supergravity  and there is an $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ gauge group with gauge fields $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a(x,z)`$, $`\mu =0,1,\mathrm{}4`$ and $`a=1,\mathrm{}15=\mathrm{dim}\mathrm{SU}(4)`$. This gauge group is of course not to be confused with the $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ of the conformal SYM theory. Note also that in the latter, $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ is a global symmetry, hence there are $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ currents $`J_\mu ^a(x)`$, $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$, but no associated gauge fields. We can nevertheless couple these currents to external gauge fields $`A_\mu ^a(x)`$, $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$ which act as sources for these currents. Then by a standard argument, the non-invariance of the one-loop effective action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[A_\mu ]`$ under gauge transformations of these external gauge fields is equivalent to the covariant non-conservation of the currents: let $`\delta _v`$ be such a gauge transformation with parameter $`v`$, then

$`\delta _v\mathrm{\Gamma }[A_\mu ]={\displaystyle \delta _vA_\mu ^a\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta A_\mu ^a}}={\displaystyle \delta _vA_\mu ^aJ^{a,\mu }}`$
$`={\displaystyle (D_\mu v)^aJ^{a,\mu }}={\displaystyle v^a(D_\mu J^\mu )^a}`$ (8)
with

$$(D_\mu J^\mu )^a(N^21)d^{abc}ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }_\mu A_\nu ^b_\rho A_\sigma ^c+\mathrm{}$$
(9)
the precise numerical coefficient being given below.

There is a standard prescription  in the AdS/CFT correspondence how to compute correlation functions: we will give this prescription for the case of present interest. For any ($`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ gauge-invariant) operator $`𝒪(x)`$ like the currents $`J_\mu ^a(x)`$ of the SYM theory, introduce a source $`\varphi _0(x)`$ like the $`A_\mu ^a(x)`$. Then the generating functional for correlators of $`J_\mu ^a`$ is just

$$\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Gamma }[A]}\mathrm{e}^{{\scriptscriptstyle \mathrm{d}^4xA_\mu ^a(x)J^{a,\mu }(x)}}_{\mathrm{SYM}}.$$
(10)
In $`AdS_5`$ string theory there is a field $`\varphi (x,z)`$ such that at the boundary $`z=0`$ of $`AdS_5`$ (note that $`z=1/u`$) which is just the four-dimensional space of the SYM theory one has $`\varphi (x,z=0)=\varphi _0(x)`$. In our case this is just $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a(x,z=0)=A_\mu ^a(x)`$ (for $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$ only) where the $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a`$ are the gauge fields of the gauged supergravity. The prescription  then is

$$\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Gamma }[A]}=Z_{\mathrm{string}}|_{\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a(x,z=0)=A_\mu ^a(x)},$$
(11)
meaning that the string partition function should be evaluated subject to the boundary condition $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a(x,z=0)=A_\mu ^a(x)`$ for $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$. Writing

$$Z_{\mathrm{string}}=\mathrm{e}^{S_{\mathrm{string}}^{\mathrm{cl}}S_{\mathrm{string}}^{1\mathrm{loop}}\mathrm{}}\mathrm{e}^{S_{\mathrm{string}}^{\mathrm{eff}}}$$
(12)
eq (11) together with eq (2) implies that, if the AdS/CFT correspondence is correct, we should have

$`\delta _vS_{\mathrm{string}}^{\mathrm{eff}}|_{\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ^a(x,z=0)=A_\mu ^a(x)}=\delta _v\mathrm{\Gamma }[A]`$
$`={\displaystyle v^a(D_\mu J^\mu )^a}`$ (13)
which is non-vanishing according to (9). Thus the $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ gauge variation of $`S_{\mathrm{string}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ should directly reproduce the SYM chiral $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ anomaly. Actually for the purpose of reproducing the leading $`N^2`$ part of the anomaly it is enough to consider the classical supergravity action .

Let us now determine the exact anomaly coefficient of the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM theory in 4 dimensions. This theory has four complex Weyl fermions $`\lambda `$ in the fundamental representation of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ with the chirality part (0,1/2) in $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ and (1/2,0) in $`\mathrm{𝟒}^{}`$ (see for example . Our conventions here are equivalent to those of .) Moreover, all fields are also in the adjoint representation of the “true” gauge group $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ which acts as a “flavour” group with respect to the $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$. Thus there are actually $`N^21`$ complex Weyl fermions $`\lambda `$ in the $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$, resp. $`\mathrm{𝟒}^{}`$. The correctly normalised R-symmetry anomaly is given by

$$\delta _v\mathrm{\Gamma }[A]=(N^21)_{S^4}\omega _4^1(v,A).$$
(14)
The differential forms

$`\omega _4^1(v,A)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24\pi ^2}}\mathrm{Tr}[vd(AdA+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^3)],`$
$`\omega _5(A)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24\pi ^2}}\mathrm{Tr}[A(dA)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}A^3dA+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}A^5]`$
satisfy the descent equations $`d\omega _5`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{24\pi ^2}\mathrm{Tr}F^3`$, and $`\delta _v\omega _5=d\omega _4^1`$ with $`F=dA+A^2`$, $`A=A^aT^a`$ and $`v=v^aT^a`$ as usual, the $`T^a`$ being the generators of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$ in the fundamental $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ representation. For later use we note that for $`T^a`$ in a general representation $`𝐑`$ of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$, the corresponding quantities with the trace taken in $`𝐑`$ are

$$\omega _{2n}^{1}{}_{}{}^{𝐑}=A(𝐑)\omega _{2n}^1,\omega _{2n+1}^𝐑=A(𝐑)\omega _{2n+1},$$
(16)
where $`A(𝐑)`$ is the anomaly coefficient defined by the ratio of the $`d`$-symbols taken in the representation $`𝐑`$ and in the fundamental representation. In general $`2n`$ or $`2n+1`$ dimensions, since the $`d`$-symbol is given by a symmetrized trace of $`n+1`$ Lie algebra generators, it is easy to show that the complex conjugate representation $`𝐑^{}`$ has an anomaly coefficient

$$A(𝐑^{})=(1)^{n+1}A(𝐑).$$
(17)
Due to the connection of anomalies and Chern-Simons actions in one higher dimension, it is natural to expect that the four-dimensional field theory anomaly is dual to a Chern-Simons action in the gauged $`AdS_5`$ supergravity. This is indeed the case as was first pointed out in . The tree level supergravity action on $`AdS_5`$ contains the following terms

$$S_{\mathrm{cl}}[A]=\frac{1}{4g_{SG}^2}d^5x\sqrt{g}F_{\mu \nu }^aF^{\mu \nu a}+k_{AdS_5}\omega _5.$$
(18)
Note that here $`F`$ is the field strength associated with the five-dimensional gauge field $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu `$. The exact values of the coefficients $`\frac{1}{4g_{SG}^2}`$ and $`k`$ will be important for us. Their ratio is fixed by supersymmetry . They may be obtained by dimensional reduction of the ten-dimensional IIB supergravity on $`S^5`$ using the fact that the radius of $`S^5`$ is given by eq. (4) as $`R^4/\alpha ^2=4\pi g_sN`$. Then it is easy to determine the normalization of the gauge kinetic energy term and one finds

$$g_{SG}^2=\frac{16\pi ^2}{N^2},k=N^2.$$
(19)
Note that the action (18) with the values (19) has been used to compute the 2-point and 3-point correlators of the currents $`J_\mu ^a`$ in the SYM theory . To leading order in $`N`$ this gives the correct result.

In usual considerations of supergravity on $`AdS`$, one considers gauge configurations $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu `$ that vanish at the boundary and so the Chern-Simons term is gauge invariant since $`\delta \omega _5=d\omega _4^1`$ and the integral vanishes. For the considerations of the AdS/CFT correspondence however, we precisely want nonvanishing boundary values for $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu `$ as explained above, cf eq (11). Then under a gauge variation $`\delta _v\stackrel{~}{A}`$, the variation of the Chern-Simons term is a boundary term

$$\delta _vS_{cl}=k_{S^4}\omega _4^1(v,A).$$
(20)
(We take the SYM theory to be defined on compactified Euclidean space, i.e. on $`S^4`$.) Now by eq (2), approximating $`S_{\mathrm{string}}^{\mathrm{eff}}S_{\mathrm{cl}}`$ and using (20) one can read off the $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ anomaly obtained from the supergravity action (18). It is

$$\delta _v\mathrm{\Gamma }[A]=\delta _vS_{\mathrm{cl}}=N^2_{S^4}\omega _4^1(v,A),$$
(21)
which agrees with the gauge theory computation (14) to leading order in $`N`$.

We thus see that the IIB supergravity action contains a Chern-Simons term at tree level which can account for the chiral anomaly of the gauge theory to leading order in $`N`$. But there is also a mismatch of “-1” which is of order $`1/N^2`$ relative to the leading term. As discussed above, this should correspond to a 1-loop effect in IIB string theory. Thus we are lead to examine the string one-loop effective action.

## 3 One-loop induced Chern-Simons action

Loop effects in $`AdS_5`$ supergravity are technically very diffciult to compute due to the complicated propagators in $`AdS`$ geometry. Here however, this is possible due to the topological character of the Chern-Simons action.

Fermionic contributions

Consider a Dirac fermion $`\psi `$ in odd dimensions (flat) minimally coupled to vector bosons $`A_\mu `$ of a group $`G`$. At the quantum level, a regularization needs to be introduced to make sense of the theory and one cannot preserve both the gauge symmetry (small and large) and the parity at the same time . If one chooses to preserve the gauge symmetry by doing a Pauli-Villars regularization, then there will be an induced Chern-Simons term generated at one loop. The result is independent of the fermion mass. In our notation, the induced Chern-Simons term is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }=\pm \frac{1}{2}\omega _{2n+1}^𝐑=\pm \frac{1}{2}A(𝐑)\omega _{2n+1},$$
(22)
where $`𝐑`$ is the representation of the Dirac fermion. The $`\pm `$ sign depends on the regularization and can often be fixed within a specific context.

This result was originally  obtained for fermions coupled to gauge fields in a flat spacetime and has been extended to full generality for arbitrary curved backgrounds and any odd dimension $`d=2n+1`$ . The induced parity violating terms are given (up to a normalization factor) by the secondary characteristic class $`Q(A,\omega )`$ satisfying

$$dQ(A,\omega )=\widehat{A}(R)ch(F)|_{2n+2},$$
(23)
where $`\omega `$ is the gravitational connection. Since $`\widehat{A}(R)=1+𝒪(R^2)`$ and $`\mathrm{Tr}F=0`$ for SU-groups, it is clear that for $`n=2`$ ($`d=5`$) there are no mixed gauge/gravitational terms. Also, there can be no purely gravitational term since it would correspond to a gravitational anomaly in four dimensions which is not possible. Hence for the present case of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$ with $`n=2`$, (23) simply reduces to $`dQ=ch(F)|_6`$ giving rise to the Chern-Simons action upon descent, which does not depend on the geometry of $`AdS_5`$ at all! Hence the result of (22) for a Dirac fermion in flat space(-time) remains valid on $`AdS_5`$.

Now we need the particle spectrum of the type IIB string theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ . The only explicitly known states are the KK states coming from the compactification of the 10 dimensional IIB supergravity multiplet . So we will examine them first. We will argue in the discussion section that the other string states are not likely to modify the result.

Particles in $`AdS_5`$ are classified by unitary irreducible representations of $`\mathrm{SO}(2,4)`$. $`\mathrm{SO}(2,4)`$ has the maximal compact subgroup $`\mathrm{SO}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$ $`\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$ and so its irreducible representations are labelled by the quantum numbers $`(E_0,J_1,J_2)`$. The complete KK spectrum of the IIB supergravity on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ was obtained in  together with information on the representation content under $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$. We reproduce these results in the table below. Actually, all fermions are symplectic Majorana, giving half the anomaly of a Dirac fermion. But there also is a mirror table with conjugate $`\mathrm{SU}(4)_R`$ representations and $`\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$ quantum numbers exchanged (opposite chiralities). So these “mirror” fermions give the same anomaly as those in the table and the net effect is that we may restrict ourselves to the fermions of the table treating them as if they were Dirac fermions.

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}& \mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)& & \mathrm{SU}(4)_R\hfill & \\ \psi _\mu \hfill & (1,1/2)& & \mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐𝟎},\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \\ & (1,1/2)& & \mathrm{𝟒}^{},\mathrm{𝟐𝟎}^{},\mathrm{}\hfill & \\ \lambda \hfill & (1/2,0)& & \mathbf{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}20}^{},\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \\ & (1/2,0)& & \mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐𝟎},\mathrm{}\hfill & \\ \lambda ^{}\hfill & (1/2,0)& & \mathrm{𝟒}^{},\mathrm{𝟐𝟎}^{},\mathrm{}\hfill & \hfill \\ & (1/2,0)& & \mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐𝟎},\mathrm{}\hfill & \\ \lambda ^{\prime \prime }\hfill & (1/2,0)& & \mathrm{𝟑𝟔},\mathrm{𝟏𝟒𝟎},\mathrm{}\hfill & \\ & (1/2,0)& & \mathrm{𝟑𝟔}^{},\mathrm{𝟏𝟒𝟎}^{},\mathrm{}\hfill & \end{array}$$
(24)
Notice that the fermion towers always come in pairs with conjugate representation content, except for a missing $`\mathrm{𝟒}^{}`$ state in the first tower of $`\lambda `$. As a result , all contributions cancel two by two except for the contribution from the unpaired $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ of the $`\lambda `$ tower. The net resulting induced Chern Simons action is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{1}{2}_{AdS_5}\omega _5.$$
(25)
While this is almost what we want, it is only half of the desired result. However this is not the whole story.

Doubleton multiplet

There are similar “missing states” in the bosonic towers. Together they are identified with the doubleton multiplet of $`\mathrm{SU}(2,2|4)`$ which consists of a gauge potential, six scalars and four complex spinors. These are nonpropagating modes in the bulk of $`AdS_5`$ and can be gauged away completely , which is the reason why they don’t appear in the physical spectrum. These modes are exactly dual to the $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$ factor of the $`\mathrm{U}(N)`$ SYM living on the boundary . We will now show that the other half of the induced Chern-Simons action is due to the corresponding Faddeev-Popov ghosts.

Let us recall that the doubleton multiplet is absent because it has been gauged away  by imposing the gravitino gauge fixing condition (see also  for the gauging in the case of $`AdS_7\times S^4`$ case). The basic idea is that upon compactifying on $`S^5`$, the original supersymmetyries in 10 dimensions decompose into an infinite tower of (unwanted) supersymmetries according to the Fourier expansion. This can be fixed however by imposing a certain condition on the variation

$$\delta \psi _\alpha =D_\alpha ϵ+\frac{i}{2R}\gamma _\alpha ϵ$$
(26)
of the gravitino. Denote the local coordinates of $`AdS\times S^5`$ by $`(x^\mu ,y^\alpha )`$. A general spinor $`ϵ`$ has the decomposition

$$ϵ=ϵ^{I,\pm }(x)\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }(y)$$
(27)
where $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }(y)`$ are the spinor spherical harmonics on $`S^5`$ and satisfy ($`D/_y=\gamma ^\alpha D_\alpha ,\alpha =5,\mathrm{}9`$)

$$D/_y\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }=i(k+\frac{5}{2})\frac{1}{R}\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }$$
(28)
where $`k=I0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }`$ can be written in terms of the killing spinors $`\eta ^{I,\pm }`$ on $`S^5`$. Subsituting (27) into (26) and using (28) we get

$$\delta (\gamma ^\alpha \psi _\alpha )=\frac{i}{R}\left[(k+\frac{5}{2})+\frac{5}{2}\right]ϵ^{I,\pm }(x)\mathrm{\Xi }^{I,\pm }(y).$$
(29)
So one finds that only the component corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{0,+}`$ is gauge invariant while all other components of $`\gamma ^a\psi _\alpha `$ can be gauged away. Thus we arrive at the gravitino gauge fixing condition

$$\gamma ^\alpha \psi _\alpha (x,y)\chi ^{I_0}(x)\eta ^{I_0,+}(y)$$
(30)
where $`\chi ^{I_0}(x)`$ are some arbitrary spacetime spinor fields. We refer the reader to  for more details. Therefore we see that (30) is the closest one can get to the gauge condition $`\gamma ^\alpha \psi _\alpha =0`$. One can also rewrite this condition as

$$\psi _\alpha =\psi _{(\alpha )}+\chi ^{I_0}(x)\gamma ^\alpha \eta ^{I_0,+}(y)$$
(31)
where the part $`\psi _{(\alpha )}`$ satisfies $`\gamma ^\alpha \psi _{(\alpha )}=0`$. The other Killing spinors $`\eta ^{}`$ have been gauged away. The coefficient of $`\eta ^{}`$ would be a field in the $`4^{}`$ of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$ and is precisely the doubleton spinors we are after. Now the constraint can be taken care of in the functional approach by introducing in the path integral the factor

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑b𝑑\overline{b}\frac{1}{\mathrm{det}M}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^5x\overline{b}Mb}}}`$ (32)
$`\delta (\gamma ^\alpha \psi _\alpha {\displaystyle \chi ^I\eta ^{I,+}}b^I(x)\eta ^{I,}(y))\delta (\text{h.c.})`$
where $`b(x)`$ is a complex fermionic field in the $`4^{}`$ of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$ and $`M=D/_x`$. Integrating over $`b,\overline{b}`$ results in the gauged fixed lagrangian. The factor $`(\mathrm{det}M)^1`$ can be handled by intoducing ghost fields $`c,\overline{c}`$, which are bosonic spinor fields on $`AdS_5`$ and are in the $`4^{}`$ of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$. Thus

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{det}M}=𝑑c𝑑\overline{c}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^5x\overline{c}Mc}}.$$
(33)
and so give rises to another -1/2 contribution to the induced Chern-Simons action. So altogether we get a total induced Chern-Simons term of -1,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }=_{AdS_5}\omega _5,$$
(34)
which is exactly the desired result. Notice that the induced Chern-Simons action (coming with a constant integer coefficient) is independent of the radius $`R`$ and this is consistent with the AdS/CFT proposal since the anomaly and its corrections are independent of $`\lambda `$.

Bosonic contributions

There is another interesting effect related to the Chern-Simons action. It is known that in three dimensions, the gluons at one loop can modify the coefficient of the Chern-Simons action by an integer shift. It has been argued that  there is no such shift for the present case. Therefore only spinor loops contribute to the induced Chern-Simons action and we find that at finite $`N`$, the coefficient $`k`$ is shifted by

$$kk1\text{or}N^2N^21$$
(35)
due to the quantum effects of the full set of Kaluza-Klein states.

A few comments about the absence of a shift due to gluon loops are in order. The bosonic shift in pure Chern-Simons theory was first computed in  using a saddle point approximation. Later calculations trying to reproduce this results from the perturbative point of view revealed that the precise shift depends on the choice of regularization scheme <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1 We thank R. Stora for a useful discussion about the issues of regularization. . In the present case of 5-dimensions, one may try to employ a regularization scheme and do a 1-loop perturbative calculation to determine the possible shift. However, like in the 3-dimensional case, it can be expected that the result will depend on the choice of regularization and a better way to determine the shift is called for. One possibility might be to do a string theory calculation by embedding the Chern-Simons action in a string setting and to determine the quantum loop effects from the string loop effects. Since string theory is free from divergences, no regularization related ambuigities should occur and a definite answer can be expected.

## 4 Discussion

We have reproduced the correct shift $`N^2`$ $`N^21`$ of the anomaly coefficient as a one-loop effect in IIB supergravity/string theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. This shift is entirely due to the towers of Kaluza-Klein states. No massive string states need to be invoked. It is indeed likely that the latter play no role at all since anomalies are usually due to massless fields only. Note however that we need the full towers of Kaluza-Klein states to get the correct result. A truncation to five-dimensional $`AdS`$ supergravity alone would not give the desired result. Also the $`AdS_5`$ supergravity Chern-Simons term originates from compactifying the full IIB supergravity. This is another indication that string states beyond the Kaluza-Klein towers are unlikely to modify our result.

We have been able to obtain a non-trivial one-loop result within a particularly favourable case. In general, one-loop calculations in $`AdS_5`$ are very difficult - already tree computations are quite non-trivial! Of course, the anomaly coefficient $`N^21`$ should be exact and there cannot be any further higher-loop corrections $`N^2\frac{1}{N^4}`$. Again, since the induced Chern-Simons term in 5 dimensions is closely related to anomalies in 4 dimensions, we expect some sort of non-renormalisation theorem to be at work, although it would be nice to have a proof of this statement.

Finally, we would like to make some comments on more or less related situations. There are other dualities like those involving $`AdS_7\times S^4`$ where one can expect similar Chern-Simons terms and doubleton multiplets. The issue of the trace-anomaly in $`AdS_5`$ should be closely related to the present study. Already the leading $`N`$ behaviour of this conformal anomaly is non-trivial to establish  and to explicitly obtain the subleading terms might well turn out to be more difficult than for the chiral anomaly studied here. Effects that are of lower order than $`N^2`$ have also been considered in  which essentially studies situations where the leading effect corresponds to open strings at tree level and hence comes with just one power of $`N`$. A somewhat related discussion is .

It will also be interesting to investigate these anomaly issues within the non-commutative version of the AdS/CFT correspondence  to see the origin of the higher derivative Chern-Simons terms  on the supergravity side.

###### Acknowledgments.

This work was partially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, by the European Union under TMR contract ERBFMRX-CT96-0045.