%0 Journal Article
%T Properties of the HII Regions Derived Using Integral Field Spectroscopy
%A Sebastian F. S¨˘nchez
%J Advances in Astronomy
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/596501
%X Here we review some of our more recent results on the observed properties of HII regions using Integral Field Spectroscopy. In particular, we illustrate the use of this technique to study in detail the ionization conditions across the nebulae for galactic HII regions (focused on the Orion Nebula) and the statistical study of large samples of extragalactic HII regions. We review the reported new scaling relation between the local mass density and the oxygen abundance across the disk galaxies and the recently discovered universal gradient for oxygen abundances. We update our previous results the lack of a dependence of the Mass-Metallicity relation with the starformation rate, including new unpublished data. Finally we discuss on the relation between the ionization conditions in the nebulae and the underlying stellar population. All together our results indicate that disk galaxies present a chemical enrichment dominated by an inside-out growth scenario, with a less evident effect of radial migrations and/or outflows. 1. Introduction Nebular emission lines from bright-individual HII regions have been, historically, the main tool at our disposal for the direct measurement of the gas-phase abundance at discrete spatial positions in galaxies. A good observational understanding of the distribution of element abundances across the surface of nearby galaxies is necessary to place constraints on theories of galactic chemical evolution. The same information is crucial to derive accurate star formation histories of and obtain information on the stellar nucleosynthesis in normal spiral galaxies. Several factors dictate the chemical evolution in a galaxy, including the primordial composition, the content and distribution of molecular and neutral gas, the star formation history (SFH), feedback, the transport and mixing of gas, the initial mass function (IMF), (e.g., [1, 2] and references therein). All these ingredients contribute through a complex process to the evolutionary histories of the stars and the galaxies in general. Accurate measurements of the present chemical abundance constrain the different possible evolutionary scenarios, and therefore it is important to determine the elemental composition using a common approch, among different galaxy types. Previous spectroscopic studies have unveiled some aspects of the complex processes at play between the chemical abundances of galaxies and their physical properties. Although these studies have been successful in determining important relationships, scaling laws and systematic patterns (e.g.,
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aa/2013/596501/