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# RELATIVISTIC HEAVY ION PHYSICS: RESULTS FROM AGS TO RHIC

## 1 Introduction

The goal of high energy heavy ion physics is to study QCD in a regime of high temperature, high density, and large reaction volumes. The hope is to find conclusive evidence that QCD undergoes a phase transition at a critical temperature from a confined state, where quarks and gluons are bound in colorless hadron states, to a deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP), where quarks and gluons can explore volumes larger than the typical hadron radius ($`R1`$ fm). Lattice calculations, under a variety of assumptions (e.g. number of quark flavors or $`m_s`$), make the robust prediction that the degrees of freedom available to the system rise rapidly as it is heated through the critical temperature $`T_c150200`$ MeV , as shown in Fig. 2. This corresponds to an energy density of order $`ϵ_c12`$ GeV/fm3. There is great interest within the theoretical community whether these lattice predictions will be confirmed in experiments and, more generally, whether high temperature QCD can be used to make quantitative predictions.

While the theoretical questions are compelling in themselves, the experimental challenges of measuring the properties of heavy ion collisions in the laboratory imply a related set of questions that should be addressed before definitive theoretical conclusions can be made. The overarching problem is whether it is possible to discern the various stages in the time evolution of the system, which evolves from the initial collisions to the final state hadrons in times on the order of 10’s of fm/c. To discover a QGP formed in the early stages of the collision, there must be observables which maintain information about its properties throughout the expansion and cooling of the system and the final hadronization stage which forms many of the particles that register in the experimental apparatus.

While measurables which address the early times directly (e.g. lepton and photon observables) are becoming available, the emphasis here will be on hadronic observables. The claim in this proceedings is that the evidence collected so far points to a picture of the collision dynamics which is consistent with the formation of a deconfined state that forms quickly, expands rapidly, and freezes out suddenly. There are also interesting comparisons with charged particle production in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions that provides some connections with perturbative QCD phenomenology.

## 2 Colliders & Experiments

High energy beams of heavy nuclei have been available at the Brookhaven AGS (Au+Au at the CMS energies per $`NN`$ collision from $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.54.3`$ GeV). and the CERN SPS (Pb+Pb collisions from $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=817.3`$ GeV). Since then, a new collider, RHIC, has begun colliding nuclei at higher energies (up to $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV) with substantial luminosities (of up to $`10^{26}\mathrm{sec}^1\mathrm{cm}^2`$). The results shown here focus primarily on RHIC data from Au+Au collisions over a range of energies ($`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 19.6, 56, 130 and 200 GeV). Most of the results are from the 130 GeV run, where the available luminosity limited the $`p_T`$ reach of many observables. However, early results from the 200 GeV data are shown here, and some preliminary results shown at the recent Quark Matter conference are also mentioned .

There are four RHIC experiments, which can be classified into two groups: the “large” experiments, PHENIX and STAR, which are large-volume and large-acceptance general-purpose detectors, and the “small” experiments, BRAHMS and PHOBOS, which are have more limited acceptance but cover aspects of the collisions not addressed by the other experiments. STAR has a large TPC with coverage for charged hadrons in $`|\eta |<1`$ and particle identification via $`dE/dx`$ up to $`p_T`$ 1 GeV. PHENIX has more limited hadron coverage ($`|\eta |<.35`$) but a higher data rate, extensive particle identification for hadrons, photons, and electrons, and forward muon arms. PHOBOS has a small-acceptance silicon spectrometer near $`y1`$ and $`4\pi `$ acceptance for multiplicity measurements. BRAHMS has two movable multi-particle spectrometers, one at midrapidity, and one covering rapidities out to $`y4`$, offering a look at identified particle spectra in regions not covered by any of the other RHIC experiments. The four RHIC experiments complement each other in that they study many different aspects of heavy ion collisions, but all have hadron coverage near mid-rapidity, which allows detailed cross-checks between the experiments.

## 3 Initial Conditions

The initial conditions of heavy ion collisions are determined primarily by the beam energy and the nuclear geometry. The impact parameter between the nuclei controls the overlap area of the contracted nuclei and thus the number of nucleons which participate via inelastic processes ($`N_{part}`$) and the number of binary collisions ($`N_{coll}N_{part}^{\frac{4}{3}}`$) The beam energy determines the initial state parton density, which is dominated by gluons at low-$`x`$, the available range in rapidity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }y=2\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{s}/m_p)`$), and the total nucleon-nucleon cross section. The combination of these factors contribute to the amount of energy deposited by the incoming baryons in each nucleus as they lose energy while penetrating the other nucleus – a phenomenon called “proton stopping” This is typically measured by the net rapidity distribution of protons minus anti-protons. Recent results from BRAHMS  show that while the ratio of protons to anti-protons is about 0.75 at mid-rapidity, it falls rapidly by $`y=3`$, consistent with a rapid increase in the net proton density, which is expected to peak at a rapidity $`2.5`$ units from $`y_{\mathrm{beam}}`$. These measurements will be critical for understanding the very early collision stage.

All of the RHIC experiments perform measurement at midrapidity, where hard processes are expected to contribute substantially to particle production. The energy density achieved in the collisions can be estimated either by measuring the transverse energy and using the Bjorken formula $`ϵ=(dE_T/dy)/\pi R^2\tau _o`$, with $`R`$ the nuclear radius and $`\tau _o`$ the “formation time” of the system. PHENIX has measured the transverse energy density at midrapidity in 130 GeV Au+Au collisions and extracted an energy density $`ϵ=`$ 4.6 $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3`$  assuming at typical value for $`\tau _o1`$ fm/c. This is already well above lattice expectations for a QGP phase transition. They have also found the ratio $`E_T/N_{ch}`$ to be constant for all $`N_{ch}`$. Thus, one can use the ratio of midrapidity charged particle production at 130 and 200 GeV ($`R=1.14\pm .05`$), shown in Fig. 4 as the particle production per participant pair , to infer an energy density of about $`ϵ=5.3`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3`$ at the highest RHIC energies.

The centrality dependence of charged particle production, $`dN_{ch}/d\eta /N_{part}/2`$, offers a means to study the evolution between $`pp`$ collisions and central Au+Au. Two types of predictions  have proven effective in describing the midrapidity data  shown in Fig. 5. The “two-component” model postulates that the total particle production stems from a linear combination of soft processes that scale with the number of participants, and hard processes that scale with the number of binary collisions. Thus, $`dN_{ch}/d\eta =n_{pp}((1X(s))N_{part}/2+X(s)N_{coll})`$, where $`n_{pp}`$ is the measured multiplicity in $`pp`$ collisions, and $`X(s)`$ is the energy-dependent fraction of hard processes in $`pp`$ collisions. (approximately 0.1 at RHIC). It is also expected that the energy released in the form of low-$`x`$ gluons should create a parton density so high that the partons below a “saturation scale” $`Q_s`$ (i.e. of larger transverse size) recombine in order not to exceed a maximum value of order $`1/\alpha _s(s)`$ . In this picture, particle production is determined mainly by $`Q_s`$, which itself depends on the transverse density of partons (i.e. $`Q_s^2A^{1/3}`$), $`dN_{ch}/d\eta /N_{part}/2=1/\alpha _s(Q_s^2)`$. As shown in Fig. 6, both of these models offer an efficient description of the experimental data from all of the RHIC experiments. Saturation models are also able to offer a reasonable quantitative description of the full rapidity distribution, an example of which by Kharzeev and Levin  is shown as a dotted line in Fig. 6.

The success of the saturation models in capturing basic features of particle production has a fascinating consequence. While most expectations of the “formation time” $`\tau _0`$ used in energy density estimates are around 1 fm/c, saturation models predict the formation time of the initial gluon state to be $`\tau _s\mathrm{}/Q_s.2`$ $`\mathrm{fm}/\mathrm{c}`$, which gives $`ϵ18`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3`$ when plugged into the Bjorken formula for the 130 GeV data. While neither estimate (5 $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3`$ or 18 $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3`$) should be taken too seriously at this point, these estimates show that both naive and more sophisticated estimates arrive at values well above the lattice expectations for QGP formation.

## 4 Universal features of particle production

We can gain insight into the relationship between Au+Au collisions and elementary nucleon-nucleon interactions by comparisons with $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilations to hadrons. It has long been noted that the charged multiplicities in $`pp`$ and $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions are similar if the energy taken away by the “leading baryons” is subtracted from $`\sqrt{s}`$ and then compared to $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions at this $`\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{eff}}}`$, suggesting a universal fragmentation mechanism . With new data from RHIC and LEP2, PHOBOS finds that Au+Au (divided by the number of participant pairs $`N_{part}/2`$) and $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions have similar pseudorapidity densities over a large range (see Fig. 6) and thus a similar total multiplicity . Comparisons of the total multiplicity per participant pair $`N_{ch}/N_{part}/2`$ over a large range of CMS energies is shown in Fig. 8 and compared to $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`pp/\overline{p}p`$ data. It is easiest to compare these data sets by dividing all of the values vs. $`\sqrt{s}`$ by a function that describes the $`e^+e^{}`$ data . It is seen that the Au+Au and $`e^+e^{}`$ data converge for $`\sqrt{s}>20`$ GeV, while the $`pp`$ data also follows the same trend if the effective energy $`\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{eff}}}=\sqrt{s}/2`$ is used.

The total multiplicity produced per participant pair in Au+Au collisions has also been measured by PHOBOS. It is shown in Fig. 8 to be constant over the range of centralities measured ($`N_{part}>65`$) for all three energies . This is reminiscent of “wounded-nucleon” scaling  but in all three cases the multiplicity is about 30-40% higher than $`pp`$ at comparable energy, and comparable to $`e^+e^{}`$. This adds an interesting perspective to the use of minijet and saturation approaches in describing the multiplicity at $`\eta =0`$, as discussed in the previous section.

This similarity in bulk particle production between Au+Au and $`e^+e^{}`$ data for $`\sqrt{s}>20`$ GeV suggests that Au+Au are more efficient than $`NN`$ interactions in transferring the incoming energy into particle production. This might simply indicate that the multiple collisions suffered per participant substantially reduce the leading particle effect. The drop below 20 GeV may be explained by the presence of a large baryon density in the final state . While it is obvious that Au+Au collisions do not start with the same initial scale as $`e^+e^{}`$, which is reflected in the much harder $`p_T`$ distributions in $`e^+e^{}`$ above 2 GeV, it appears that the available energy, rather than the initial hard scale, has the stronger effect on the bulk particle production. This may be another manifestation of the universality of low-$`x`$ physics in strongly-interacting systems at high energy (which is discussed in the HERA context in Ref. ). The physics behind this may need to be addressed before claims to particular behavior for particle yields in heavy ions can be made in other contexts.

## 5 Dynamics of the Parton Cascade

If the energy density is indeed as large, and forms as early, as the success of the saturation descriptions seem to imply, then we might expect the density of scatterings to lead to an early thermalization and possibly the development of hydrodynamic behavior as the system evolves . This expectation is borne out by measurements of the event-by-event azimuthal distributions, which are found to have a slightly elliptical shape at all energies from AGS to RHIC. The maximum value of $`v_2`$, the second Fourier component of the azimuthal distribution, $`dN/d\varphi 1+2v_2\times \mathrm{cos}(2(\varphi \mathrm{\Psi }_R))`$ with $`\mathrm{\Psi }_R`$ the angle of the event reaction plane, has been found to increase with increasing beam energy. This is contrary to what one would expect if the dynamics were purely hadronic, since late stage rescattering would wash out any initial state anisotropy. Thus, the non-zero $`v_2`$ has been interpreted as stemming from hydrodynamic pressure gradients in the initial state, implying partonic thermalization, which is an essential prerequisite to QGP formation.

The results from STAR and PHOBOS  are shown in Fig. 10 and compared with predictions from a range of hydro models (shown by solid bars). These results suggest that the more central events at RHIC are in fact consistent with hydrodynamic evolution. The models used here typically start with energy densities around 20 GeV/fm3 evolving from an early time $`\tau <1`$ fm, which is consistent with values extracted from the saturation approach.

The importance of $`v_2`$ as an experimental observable comes from the quantitative comparisons with theoretical predictions for observables relative to the reaction plane, which is defined as the axis where $`dN/d\varphi `$ is at a maximum. Measurements of $`v_2`$ as a function of the transverse momentum  characterize the modulation of $`dN/d\varphi `$ for particles of a given momentum relative to the reaction plane. As seen in Fig. 10, STAR has measured $`v_2(p_T)`$ for different particle species and found good agreement with hydro calculations out to $`p_T1`$ GeV, where their particle identification stops. However, two notable disagreements with hydro exist. The linear rise of $`v_2`$ with $`p_T`$ stops at $`p_T2`$ GeV and remains constant out to larger $`p_T`$ . Also, the pseudorapidity distribution of $`v_2`$ drops rapidly away from midrapidity, suggesting that the “boost-invariant” hydrodynamic behavior may only be found very near $`y=0`$ .

## 6 Thermal Description of the final Hadronic State

As the system expands and cools, it eventually hadronizes into the final state particles measured in the detectors. As these are the particles identified by most of the experiments, a large amount of data exists on the properties of this stage, only a subset of which will be shown in this section. The most pressing issue is whether the final state shows collective effects, which would be a signal of equilibration, as opposed to particle production simply proceeding via the available phase space.

The most basic property of the system, measured by all four RHIC experiments, is the gradual approach of all of the anti-particle/particle ratios towards unity , as shown in Fig. 12. The fact that $`\overline{p}/p`$ is less than unity directly indicates the presence of some fraction the primary baryons at mid-rapidity, an incredible fact considering the large initial baryon momentum. The kaons, while approaching one, also do not reach it at the top RHIC energy. These two ratios have been found to be highly correlated, suggesting that the produced hadrons are highly sensitive to the net baryon density. Still, RHIC is closer than ever before to creating the conditions found in the very early universe.

The relationship between these ratios, and many others, can be understood by means of “thermal models”, which assume the system to be in chemical and thermal equilibrium up to the time when the momentum transfers are low enough that the flavor composition of the system is frozen. If only the ratios of particle yields are used, then the available parameters are simply $`T`$ (the temperature), $`\mu _B`$ (the baryon chemical potential) and $`\gamma _s`$, which parametrizes the deviation from full strangeness equilibration. A volume ($`V`$) is needed if absolute yields are to be characterized as well.

The application of these models to data from central collisions of heavy nuclei, as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$, finds the simple result (shown in Fig. 2) that all of the data seem to lie on a single contour on the $`(T,\mu _B)`$ space. There are two interpretations of this behavior . Cleymans et al. explain this as freezeout occurring when the energy per particle $`E/N`$ 1 GeV. Braun-Munzinger and Stachel suggest that it occurs at a constant total baryon density of $`n_B=.12/\mathrm{fm}^3`$. Both of these interpretations are consistent with the existing data.

It is interesting that thermal models have also been applied to $`pp`$, $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`e^+e^{}`$ data and find the similar result of $`T170`$ MeV (with $`\mu _B=0`$) . This suggests that the heavy ion data above CERN energies approaches similar freezeout state as that for elementary systems. This may be another indication of the onset of universal behavior as the role of the net baryon density becomes less significant. However, some important remain between heavy ions and the elementary systems.

One difference between nuclei and the more elementary systems is evident in the details of the momentum spectra. In elementary collisions ($`pp`$, $`e^+e^{}`$), the spectra at low $`m_T`$ show “$`m_T`$ scaling” where the individual particle yields described by an exponential $`\mathrm{exp}(m_T/T)`$ with same slope for all particle species. In heavy ions, the slope at low $`m_T`$ increases with the particle mass in a way which can be fit by the form $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=T_o+m\beta ^2`$, where $`\beta `$ is a collective “radial flow” velocity. The energy dependence of the fit parameters has been extracted by Kaneta and Xu  and is shown in Fig. 12. They observe a thermal freezeout temperature ($`T_{th}=140`$ MeV) which is consistently lower than the chemical freezeout extracted from the particle ratios ($`T_{ch}=170`$ MeV). They also find that $`\beta `$ increases rapidly wity $`\sqrt{s}`$ but appears to saturate above $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}10`$ GeV. These data strongly imply collective behavior among the final state hadrons.

Another important difference is seen in the total strangeness yield, which is “enhanced” by a factor of two in heavy ion collisions, as shown by the energy dependence of the “Wroblewski” factor ($`\lambda _s=2\overline{s}s/(\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d)`$) in Fig. 14. While strangeness enhancement has long been a canonical signal of QGP formation, there exists a simple interpretation of this effect in terms of the volume over which strangeness can equilibrate. In other words, the system produced in nuclear collisions no longer seems to be forced to obey local strangeness conservation . However, a recent analysis by NA49 , characterizing the $`K^+/\pi ^+`$ ratios as a function of centrality at CERN SPS energies, has shown that the effect may not be related precisely to the reaction volume. Instead, this ratio scales with the fraction of participants that have collided more than once, shifting the responsibility for what appears to be equilibration in the final state to some property of the initial collision geometry.

Both chemical and thermal freezeout is addressed in the the model by Broniowski and Florkowski . They assume that chemical and thermal freezeout occur at the same time. By fitting to the available $`\pi `$, $`K`$ and $`p`$ spectra from PHENIX and STAR, and incorporating transverse expansion, this model is able to describe all measured particle species, and was even successful in predicting particles like the $`K^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The success in understanding the $`K^{}`$ yields is very interesting since it has a lifetime comparable to the lifetime of the system itself ($`c\tau 4`$ fm). This suggests that there is little, if any, subsequent interactions of the $`K^{}`$ decay products, lending credibility to the assumption of the single freezeout time. This model is similar in concept to so-called “blast wave” fits to experimental data, which also assumes that hadronization occurs on a thin space-time shell. The success of these two approaches suggests that the hadronization process is quite sudden.

## 7 Hard Probes of the Early Stages

Hard processes occur at early times ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }E`$) and thus offer a means to probe the early stages of the collision. In principle, jet cross sections can still be calculated within a pQCD framework as they are for hadron-hadron interactions, by considering the structure of the nucleons in the colliding nuclei and assuming they interact via the standard pQCD matrix elements. Naively, one would expect that the rate of hard processes should scale with the number of binary collisions, since the timescale of hard processes is so short that incoming nucleons will be sensitive to all of the nucleons in its path. However, there is large body of theoretical work suggesting that high-energy partons should lose energy in a deconfined medium via color brehmsstrahlung - a phenomenon called “jet quenching”. Jets traversing a hadronic medium should suffer no induced radiation and thus be unmodified.

At RHIC energies, there are two impediments to directly measuring jets. First of all, the typical energy is not high enough to create well-collimated cones of particles. Secondly, a central event always creates a large background of soft particles which will obscure a jet signal within a typical jet cone. Thus, measurements of quenching focus primarily on the high-$`p_T`$ part of the inclusive hadron spectrum, to look for modifications to the measured jet fragmentation functions.

First results on particle spectra at high $`p_T`$ in heavy ion collisions were shown by the PHENIX and STAR collaborations only a few months after the end of the 130 GeV RHIC running in 2000 . Both collaborations presented the modification of the inclusive hadron spectra (both of all charged particles and identified $`\pi ^o`$’s) in central Au+Au collisions by a ratio comparing it with spectra from $`\overline{p}p`$ collisions measured by the UA1 collaboration, interpolated to 130 GeV and then divided by the number of binary collisions.

$$R_{AA}=\frac{dN/dp_T(\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au})}{N_{coll}\times dN/dp_T(\overline{p}p)}$$
(1)
The PHENIX results of $`R_{AA}`$ vs. $`p_T`$ for charged hadrons and neutral pions in 130 GeV Au+Au collisions are shown in Fig. 16. At low-$`p_T`$, the $`R_{AA}`$ is $`1/6`$, as expected for wounded nucleon scaling (since $`N_{coll}/(N_{part}/2)6`$ in central Au+Au). However, while $`R_{AA}`$ increases with $`p_T`$, as might be expected for the gradual dominance of hard processes, at 2 GeV the rise stops, with $`R_{AA}`$ saturating or decreasing, depending on the particle type, well below unity. STAR results on $`R_{AA}`$ show a marked decrease above 2 GeV. Preliminary results at 200 GeV from both experiments confirm this decrease and find that above 5-6 GeV, $`R_{AA}`$ becomes approximately constant at $`1/6`$ out to 9 GeV (PHENIX all charged and $`\pi ^o`$) and $`1/3`$-$`1/2`$ out to 11 GeV (STAR all charged). These results are in qualitative agreement with the jet quenching hypothesis and theoretical descriptions are rapidly becoming available.

While large energy loss effects were expected for the nearly-massless light quarks, heavy quarks are expected to radiate far less. This is because of the “dead-cone” effect, where radiation is suppressed at angles less than $`\theta <m_q/E`$, where $`m_q`$ is the mass of the heavy quark, and $`E`$ is its energy . This expectation has been tested by PHENIX using measurements of single electrons and positrons in central 130 GeV Au+Au collisions. They observe a significant excess of electrons above the expected hadronic and photonic backgrounds and attribute it to the presence of open charm, thus extracting an open charm cross section per binary collision $`\sigma _{\overline{c}c}=380\mu b\pm 200(\mathrm{sys})\pm 60(\mathrm{stat})`$ . This is consistent with an extrapolation of FNAL and ISR measurements using a PYTHIA calculation tuned to reproduce the lower energy results, as shown in Fig. 16.

Thus, there seems to be no violation of collision scaling in the charm sector, consistent with no energy loss, as expected from the dead-cone effect. However, it must be kept in mind that this measurement has large systematic errors, which are being carefully addressed in the higher-statistics 200 GeV data. It should also be noted that the electrons have not been directly tagged as coming from charm decays, e.g. by measuring the characteristic decay length of the charm mesons. Future upgrades to the RHIC experiments seek to address this issue definitively, which is a crucial piece of information both for understanding jet quenching and as a baseline for $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ suppression.

## 8 Ultra Peripheral Interactions

The colliding gold beams at RHIC have also opened up opportunities of studying the physics of coherent meson production. The highly compressed ions act as sources of very strong Coulomb fields as well as pomerons. Thus, at large impact parameter, one expects photon- photon or photon- pomeron interactions, as well as virtual photon exchange. Vector mesons can be produced coherently by a virtual photon, emitted by one nucleus, fluctuating into a quark-antiquark pair and scattering elastically off of the other nucleus, provided they satisfy the conditions $`p_T<\pi \mathrm{}/R_A`$ (90 MeV) and $`p_{||}<\pi \mathrm{}\gamma /R_A`$ (6 GeV) where $`\gamma `$ is the lorentz boost of the nucleus (70 at RHIC 130 GeV). The $`\rho ^o`$ production cross section can be predicted using Glauber extrapolations of $`\rho ^o`$ photoproduction data to be 350 mb .

Using a combination of special triggers and minimum-bias samples, STAR has extracted a strong coherent $`\rho ^o`$ peak both in collisions where the gold nuclei are intact, and where one or more neutrons is dissociated from each nucleus via coulomb excitation (shown in Fig. 17). They extract an exclusive $`\rho ^o`$ cross section of $`410\pm 190\pm 100`$ mb . The agreement between these measurements and the Glauber predictions suggests that $`\rho ^o`$ production and Coulomb excitation are independent processes, and thus factorize. These measurements thus point to new opportunities in the physics of strong fields.

## 9 Summary of Results

With the new RHIC data, systematic data now exists for heavy ion collisions as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$ over several orders of magnitude and as a function of impact parameter. These data test the interplay between hard and soft processes in a large-volume system where nucleons are struck multiple times. The data is consistent with creating a deconfined state (jet quenching) that forms quickly (saturation models), expands rapidly (radial and elliptic flow) and freezes out suddenly (single freezeout and blast wave fits). There are also intriguing connections with particle production in elementary systems, which point to the role of the energy available for particle production on the features of the final state. Many in this field are optimistic that the careful understanding of this experimental data may lead to the theoretical breakthroughs that will connect these complex systems to the fundamental lattice predictions.

## 10 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the organizers of Physics in Collision for inviting me to speak on behalf of the heavy ion community. I would also like to thank the RHIC experiment spokespeople, W. Busza, T. Hallman, F. Vidaebeck, and W. Zajc, for their input. Finally, special thanks to J. Nagle, C. Roland, and the PHOBOS collaboration for valuable suggestions and advice while preparing the talk and manuscript.


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# On the origin of nitrogen

## 1 Introduction

The origin of nitrogen has always been one of the central problems of the theory of chemical evolution of galaxies. The theoretical stellar yields of nitrogen have been computed by many investigators (Renzini & Voli 1981; Maeder 1992; Marigo et al. 1996, 1998, 2001; van den Hoek & Groenewegen 1997; Boothroyd & Sackmann 1999; Rauscher et al. 2002; Meynet & Maeder 2002a,b; among others). However, the results are not undisputed. Therefore, the ”empirical” approach to study the origin of nitrogen, i.e the comparison of the predictions of models of chemical evolution of galaxies computed with different assumptions for nitrogen yields with observed N abundances, has been widely used (Edmunds & Pagel 1978; Lequeux et al. 1979; Serrano & Peimbert 1983; Matteucci & Tosi 1985; Matteucci 1986; Garnett 1990; Pilyugin 1992, 1993, 1999; Vila-Costas & Edmunds 1993; Marconi et al. 1994; Thuan et al. 1995; Thurston et al. 1996; Kobulnicky & Skillman 1996, 1998; van Zee et al. 1998a; Izotov & Thuan 1999; Coziol et al. 1999; Henry et al. 2000; Contini et al. 2002; among others). The interpretation of the observed N/O vs. O/H diagram is at the base of the empirical approach.

Thanks to the work of Thuan et al. (1995), Kobulnicky & Skillman (1996), van Zee et al. (1997), Izotov & Thuan (1999), and others, the N/O vs. O/H diagram appears to be well established in the low-metallicity range. In the low-metallicity range, it has significantly changed during the last decade. There is no commonly accepted interpretation of the present-day N/O vs. O/H diagram. Izotov & Thuan (1999) have concluded that massive stars are responsible for the nitrogen abundances observed in low-metallicity blue compact galaxies, while Henry et al. (2000) have found that intermediate-mass stars make a dominant contribution to the nitrogen production. As noted by Henry et al. (2000), a major problem with N/O ratios has been to try to explain the spread in N/O at a given O/H. Close examination of the suggested explanations of the origin of the scatter in the present-day N/O – O/H diagram shows that existing explanations are not satisfactory (see below). This provides the motivation for this study.

We use also here an empirical approach to study the origin of nitrogen. Why should we hope that this attempt would be more successful than previous ones based on the empirical approach in establishing the origin of nitrogen? Most studies on the origin of nitrogen have concentrated on low-luminosity dwarf galaxies. Van Zee et al. (1998a) have shown that the use of low-metallicity H ii regions at the periphery of spiral galaxies for investigation of the origin of nitrogen provides some advantages in comparison to H ii regions in dwarf irregular galaxies. In previous studies, the oxygen abundances in high-metallicity H ii regions, where \[OIII\]$`\lambda 4363`$ line is usually not available, were derived using an empirical method (usually the R23 – method suggested by Pagel et al. 1979). Recently it has been shown (Pilyugin 2000, 2001a,b) that the oxygen abundance derived with the R23 – method produces a systematic error depending on the excitation parameter P: the R23 – method provides more or less realistic oxygen abundances in high-excitation H ii regions, but yields overestimated oxygen abundances in low-excitation H ii regions. This is in agreement with the result of Kinkel & Rosa (1994), who showed the need of lowering all H ii region abundances obtained with the R23 calibration of Edmunds and Pagel (1984) for intrinsic solar-like O/H values and above. Castellanos et al. (2002) also found that the R23 – method yields an overestimated oxygen abundances in low-excitation H ii regions. Thus, the high-metallicity part of the N/O vs. O/H diagram in previous studies can be highly uncertain. A new way of oxygen abundance determination in H ii regions (called the P – method) was suggested by Pilyugin (2001a). It was demonstrated that the oxygen abundances derived with the P – method are as reliable as the ones derived with the classic Te – method (Pilyugin 2001a,b). Thus, we will be able to construct a more realistic high-metallicity part of the N/O vs. O/H diagram in the present study.

Traditionally, the problem of the nitrogen production is discussed in the framework of primary versus secondary processes. Since an empirical approach is adopted in the present study, the problem of the nitrogen production will be discussed in the framework of metallicity-independent versus metallicity-dependent yields. The metallicity dependence of the yield of element x does not necessary imply that element x is a secondary one. Instead it can be result of stellar mass loss which can affect both stellar evolution and the production of element x. The dependence of stellar mass loss on metallicity leads to a metallicity dependence of the yield of element x even if that element is primary. Indeed, Maeder (1992) predicts a metallicity dependence of the yield of the primary element oxygen as the result of a metallicity-dependent mass loss process.

The determination of oxygen abundances and nitrogen to oxygen abundance ratios in high-metallicity H ii regions of galaxies and the construction of an accurate N/O – O/H diagram for H ii regions in irregular and spiral galaxies is described in Section 2. The nitrogen production sites derived from the analysis of the N/O – O/H diagram and observational data of other kinds are reported in Section 3. A discussion is presented in Section 4. Section 5 is a brief summary.

## 2 The N/O – O/H diagram

### 2.1 Low-metallicity H ii regions in irregular galaxies

Generally, the precision of the oxygen abundance determination in oxygen-poor H ii regions with bright emission lines in irregulars is higher than in oxygen-rich H ii regions in spirals. However, many irregular galaxies have no bright H ii regions with readily measured emission lines. As was noted by Hidalgo-Gámez & Olofsson (1998) the uncertainties in the intensity of the $`[OIII]\lambda 4363`$ line in spectra of H ii regions in dwarf irregular galaxies reported in the literature fluctuate between 11$`\%`$ and 120$`\%`$. Then the precision of the oxygen abundance determination in oxygen-poor irregulars without H ii regions with bright emission lines is rather low (Pilyugin 2001c). Therefore we did not collect all the available data but instead have considered only two data sets.

Kobulnicky & Skillman (1996) have selected from the literature a large sample (72 measurements in 60 galaxies) of spectroscopic measurements in metal-poor galaxies (12 + log(O/H) $`<`$ $``$ 8.4) and have recomputed the O and N/O abundances in a self-consistent manner. Their data are shown in Fig.1 with pluses. Izotov & Thuan (1999) have presented O and N abundances derived from high-quality spectroscopic observations of 54 supergiant H ii regions in 50 low-metallicity blue compact galaxies with oxygen abundances 12 + log(O/H) between 7.1 and 8.3. These data are presented in Fig.1 with open circles.

The observed N/O – O/H diagram in the low-metallicity range has appreciably changed over the last decade. The early N/O – O/H diagram (see Fig.7 in Garnett (1990), Fig.1 in Pilyugin (1992)) consisted of a cloud of points with a more or less constant upper envelope of N/O, and with the spread in N/O at a given O/H sligtly decreasing with increasing O/H. In contrast, the scatter in N/O at a given O/H in the present N/O – O/H diagram is extremelly small at low O abundances. The scatter becomes large only when the metallicity exceeds a certain value (12+log(O/H) around 7.6), and up to O abundances around 12+log(O/H) = 8.3 the lower envelope of N/O is equal to the N/O value at low O abundances, Fig.1, (see also Fig.2 in Thuan, Izotov, & Lipovetsky 1995, Fig.15 in Kobulnicky & Skillman 1996, Fig.2 in Izotov & Thuan 1999).

### 2.2 H ii regions in the Small Magellanic Cloud

The Small Magellanic Cloud is a well observed dwarf irregular galaxy. Examination of this galaxy can clarify the chemical enrichment history in irregulars. The H ii regions in the Small Magellanic Cloud were observed by a number of investigators. Their oxygen and nitrogen abundances were recomputed here in the same way with the classic Te – method, using published spectra. The electron temperature within the \[OIII\] zone is derived from equation (Pagel et al. 1992)

$`t_3=1.432/[\mathrm{log}R0.85+0.03\mathrm{log}t_3+`$
$`\mathrm{log}(1+0.0433xt_3^{0.06})],`$ (1)
where $`R`$ = $`I_{[OIII]\lambda 4959+\lambda 5007}/I_{[OIII]\lambda 4363}`$. Using the obtained value of $`t_3`$, the oxygen and nitrogen abundances were derived from the following expressions (Pagel et al. 1992)

$$\frac{N}{O}=\frac{N^+}{O^+},$$
(2)
$`\mathrm{log}(N^+/O^+)=\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{I_{[NII]\lambda 6548+\lambda 6584}}{I_{[OII]\lambda 3726+\lambda 3729}}}+0.307{\displaystyle \frac{0.726}{t_2}}`$
$`0.02\mathrm{log}t_2,`$ (3)
$$\frac{O}{H}=\frac{O^+}{H^+}+\frac{O^{++}}{H^+},$$
(4)
$`12+\mathrm{log}(O^{++}/H^+)=\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{I_{[OIII]\lambda 4959+\lambda 5007}}{I_{H_\beta }}}+6.174+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1.251}{t_3}}0.55\mathrm{log}t_3,`$ (5)
$`12+\mathrm{log}(O^+/H^+)=\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{I_{[OII]\lambda 3726+\lambda 3729}}{I_{H_\beta }}}+5.890+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1.676}{t_2}}0.40\mathrm{log}t_2+\mathrm{log}(1+1.35x),`$ (6)
$$x=10^4n_et_2^{1/2},$$
(7)
where $`n_e`$ is the electron density in cm-3, $`t_2`$ = $`t_{[NII]}`$ is the electron temperature in units of 104K. We adopt $`t_2`$ = $`t_{[NII]}`$ = $`t_{[OII]}`$. The value of $`n_e`$ is adopted to be equal to 100 cm-3 for all H ii regions. The $`t_2`$$`t_3`$ relation was taken from Garnett (1992):

$$t_2=0.7t_3+0.3.$$
(8)
The results are presented in Table 1. The name of the H ii region is listed in column 1. The oxygen abundance is reported in column 2. The nitrogen to oxygen abundance ratio is given in column 3. The reference is listed in column 4. Examination of Table 1 shows that the oxygen and nitrogen abundances in the interstellar medium of the Small Magellanic Cloud are well defined; oxygen and nitrogen abundances derived with spectroscopic data from different studies are in good agreement. We note that the nitrogen to oxygen ratio in the H ii regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud is very close to that in the H ii regions of the most oxygen-poor blue compact galaxies, Fig.1.

### 2.3 High-metallicity H ii regions in spiral galaxies

The N/O vs. O/H diagram for H ii regions in spiral galaxies has been constructed in a number of studies (Matteucci 1986; Vila-Costas & Edmunds 1993; van Zee et al. 1998a; Henry et al. 2000; among others). In those studies, the oxygen abundances in high-metallicity H ii regions of spiral galaxies are derived using an empirical R23 – calibration, inducing a large uncertainty in the N/O vs. O/H diagram as mentioned in the Introduction. Here we attempt to construct a more precise N/O vs. O/H diagram for H ii regions in spiral galaxies. The oxygen abundances and N/O abundance ratios in high-metallicity H ii regions, where $`\lambda 4363`$ is not available, are determined with the following algorithm. The oxygen abundance is determined from the expression (Pilyugin 2001a)

$$12+\mathrm{log}(O/H)_P=\frac{R_{23}+54.2+59.45P+7.31P^2}{6.07+6.71P+0.371P^2+0.243R_{23}}.$$
(9)
The following notations have been adopted here: $`R_2`$ = $`I_{[OII]\lambda 3727+\lambda 3729}/I_{H\beta }`$, $`R_3`$ = $`I_{[OIII]\lambda 4959+\lambda 5007}/I_{H\beta }`$, $`R_{23}`$ =$`R_2`$ \+ $`R_3`$, P=R3/R23.

Using the value of O/H derived from Eq.(9) and measured line intensities, Eqs.(4) – (8) can be solved for $`t_2`$. Then the N/O abundance ratio is derived from the Eqs.(2) – (3).

Alternatively, the value of $`t_2`$ can be also found from the following expression for $`t_P`$ = $`t_3`$ (Pilyugin 2001a)

$$t_P=\frac{R_{23}+3.09+7.05P+2.87P^2}{9.90+11.86P+7.05P^20.583R_{23}}$$
(10)
and Eq.(8). The value of $`t_2`$ determined from Eqs.(8),(10) is in good agreement with the value of $`t_2`$ derived from Eqs.(4)-(9) for the majority of the H ii regions considered. However, for H ii regions in which most of the oxygen is in the O+ stage, the two values of $`t_2`$ are not in agreement. Eqs.(4)-(9) give more realistic values of $`t_2`$ for these H ii regions.

The comparison between the (N/O)$`_{T_e}`$ – (O/H)$`_{T_e}`$ and (N/O)P – (O/H)P diagrams for H ii regions of the well – observed spiral galaxy M101 allows to test the reliability of the (N/O)P values. The spectra of the H ii regions in M101 with measured temperature-sensitive line ratios are given in a number of publications (Garnett & Kennicutt 1994; Garnett et al. 1999; Kinkel & Rosa 1994; McCall et al. 1985; Rayo et al. 1982; Shields & Searle 1978; Smith 1975; Torres-Peimbert et al. 1989; van Zee et al. 1998b). The (N/O)$`_{T_e}`$ – (O/H)$`_{T_e}`$ diagram for H ii regions of M101 with measured temperature-sensitive line ratios is presented in Fig.2 by open circles. Two or more independent observations of the same H ii region are connected by a solid line. The (N/O)P – (O/H)P diagram for the H ii regions of M101 is shown in Fig.2 by the pluses. The intensities of $`I_{[OII]\lambda 3727+\lambda 3729}/I_{H\beta }`$, $`I_{[OIII]\lambda 4959+\lambda 5007}/I_{H\beta }`$, and $`I_{[NII]\lambda 6548+\lambda 6584}/I_{H\beta }`$ were taken from Smith (1975), Shields & Searle (1978), Rayo, Peimbert, & Torres-Peimbert (1982), McCall, Rybski, & Shields (1985), Torres-Peimbert, Peimbert, & Fierro (1989), Garnett & Kennicutt (1994), Kinkel & Rosa (1994), Kennicutt & Garnett (1996), van Zee et al. (1998b), Garnett et al. (1999). Inspection of Fig.2 shows that there is good agreement between the (N/O)$`_{T_e}`$ – (O/H)$`_{T_e}`$ and (N/O)P – (O/H)P diagrams, confirming the reliability of the (N/O)P and (O/H)P values.

The oxygen abundances (O/H)P and nitrogen-to-oxygen abundances ratios (N/O)P have been derived for H ii regions in the following galaxies: NGC224, NGC253, NGC300, NGC598, NGC628, NGC753, NGC925, NGC1058, NGC1232, NGC1365, NGC1637, NGC2403, NGC2805, NGC2841, NGC2903, NGC2997, NGC3031, NGC3184, NGC3351, NGC4254, NGC4258, NGC4303, NGC4321, NGC4395, NGC4501, NGC4751, NGC4651, NGC4654, NGC4689, NGC4713, NGC4736, NGC5055, NGC5194, NGC5236, NGC5457, NGC6384, NGC6946, NGC7331, NGC7793, and IC342. We use Eqs.(2) - (9) and more than six hundred published spectra from Alloin et al. (1981), Blair et al. (1982), Bresolin et al. (1999), Dennefeld & Kunth (1981), Diaz et al. (1991), Dufour et al. (1980), Edmunds & Pagel (1984), Ferguson et al. (1998), Fierro et al. (1986), Henry et al. (1992,1994, 1996), Garnett et al. (1997), Garnett et al. (1999), Garnett & Shields (1987), Kennicutt & Garnett (1996), Kinkel & Rosa (1994), Kwitter & Aller (1981), McCall et al. (1985), Pagel et al. (1979), Rayo et al. (1982), Roy & Walsh (1997), Searle (1971), Shields et al. (1991), Skillman et al. (1996), Smith (1975), Staufer & Bothum (1984), Torres-Peimbert et al. (1989), van Zee et al. (1998b), Vilchez et al. (1988), and Webster & Smith (1983). The N/O – O/H diagram for H ii regions in spiral galaxies is shown in Fig.3. The detailed discussion of the radial nitrogen abundance distribution across the disks of spiral galaxies will be given elsewhere.

A prominent feature of Fig.3 is the lack of H ii regions with 12+log(O/H) lower 8.2. This lack does not mean that there are no low-metallicity H ii regions in the outer parts of spiral galaxies. Rather, it is caused by the following reason: the relationship between oxygen abundance and strong line intensities is double-valued with two distinctive parts usually known as the lower and upper branches of the R23 – O/H diagram. Thus, one has to know in advance on which of the two branches the H ii region lies. The above expression for the oxygen abundance determination in H ii regions, Eq.(9), is only valid for H ii regions which belong to the upper branch, with 12+log(O/H) higher than around 8.2. It has been known for a long time (Searle 1971, Smith 1975) that disks of spiral galaxies can show radial oxygen abundance gradients, in the sense that the oxygen abundance is higher in the central part of the disk and decreases with galactocentric distance. Thus, we start from the H ii regions in the central part of disk and move outward until the radius R where the oxygen abundance decreases to around 12+log(O/H) = 8.2. An unjustified use of Eq.(9) in the determination of the oxygen abundance in low-metallicity H ii regions beyond R would result in overestimated oxygen abundances, and would cause a false bend in the slope of abundance gradients to appear. Therefore, H ii regions with galactocentric distances larger than R, those with 12+log(O/H) less than 8.2 were rejected.

The general N/O – O/H diagram for H ii regions in spiral and irregular galaxies is shown in Fig.4.

## 3 The nitrogen production sites traced by the observational data

### 3.1 The N/O – O/H diagram

The observed trend of nitrogen abundance with metallicity as measured by oxygen abundance has been widely used as a clue to identify the sites for nitrogen production (Edmunds & Pagel 1978; Garnett 1990; Pilyugin 1992, 1993; Marconi, Matteucci, & Tosi 1994; Thuan, Izotov, & Lipovetsky 1995; Izotov & Thuan 1999; Henry, Edmunds, & Köppen 2000; among others). Conclusions about the nitrogen production sites are reached from the interpretation of three prominent features in the observed N/O – O/H diagram : i) the remarkable constancy of N/O in the lowest metallicity (12+log(O/H) $`<`$ 7.6) galaxies, and the fact that, up to O abundances around 12+log(O/H) = 8.3 the lower envelope of N/O is equal to the N/O value at low O abundances; ii) beginning at roughly 12+log(O/H) = 7.6, there is a large scatter in N/O at a given O/H value; iii) beginning at roughly 12+log(O/H) = 8.3, the lower envelope of N/O increases with O/H.

In the early 1990s, several studies were devoted to the explanation of the N/O – O/H diagram (Garnett 1990; Pilyugin 1992, 1993; Vila-Costas & Edmunds 1992, Marconi, Matteucci, & Tosi 1994). The problem of the scatter in N/O at a given O/H value has attracted particular attention. Two mechanisms have been suggested to explain the scatter. The first mechanism is time-delayed production of nitrogen. The second mechanism is selective heavy-element loss through enriched galactic winds. As mentioned above, the observed present-day N/O – O/H diagram at low metallicities differs significantly from the earlier one: while the earlier diagram suggests that the scatter in N/O grows as O/H decreases, the present one shows exactly the reverse. Therefore the interpretation suggested in the early 1990s has been revised in later studies.

Thuan, Izotov & Lipovetsky (1995) and Izotov & Thuan (1999) have concluded that the small dispersion of N/O at low metallicities is strong evidence against any time-delayed production of nitrogen in the lowest metallicity blue compact galaxies and the constancy of N/O can be explained only by nitrogen production in short-lived massive stars, i.e. oxygen and nitrogen must be made in the same massive stars. Nitrogen production by massive stars was also suggested by Matteucci (1986). Thuan, Izotov, & Lipovetsky (1995) and Izotov & Thuan (1999) have concluded that the large dispersion of N/O in galaxies with 12+log(O/H) $`>`$ 7.6 can be explained by the addition of nitrogen production in intermediate-mass stars; by the time intermediate-mass stars have evolved and released their nucleosynthetic products (100 – 500 Myr), all galaxies have become enriched to 7.6 $`<`$ 12 + log(O/H) $`<`$ 8.2 – the delayed release of nitrogen greatly increase the scatter in N/O. Close examination of the N/O – O/H diagram shows that this scenario for the history of galaxy enrichment in nitrogen meets difficulties in galaxies with 12+log(O/H) $`>`$ 7.6. Indeed, the N/O value in the Small Magellanic Cloud is close to that in the lowest metallicity blue compact galaxies, Fig.1, (see below). According to the above scenario, only massive stars are responsible for the N/O value in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Then one has to conclude that most of the stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud have formed recently so that the nitrogen-producing stars have not yet returned their nucleosynthesis products to the interstellar medium because they have not had enough time to evolve. In that scenario, most of the stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud formed in last 100 – 500 Myr, which is not the case.

Henry, Edmunds, & Köppen (2000) have concluded that the constancy of the N/O in metal-poor galaxies is entirely and naturally explained if they are characterized by historically low star formation rates, with nearly all of the nitrogen being produced by intermediate mass stars between 4 and 8 M, with a moderate time delay (a characteristic lag time of roughly 250 Myr following their formation). Those authors have found that this moderate time delay in nitrogen release by intermediate-mass stars does not appear to be an important factor in the evolution of this element. They concluded that the scatter is caused by intermittent increases in nitrogen caused by local contamination by Wolf-Rayet stars or luminous blue variables. Given that the scatter is large (more than 0.3 dex at 12+log(O/H) = 7.9), this conclusion appears to be in conflict with their other conclusion that nearly all of the nitrogen is produced by intermediate-mass stars between 4 and 8 M.

Thus, the existing explanations of the large scatter in N/O at a given O/H do not appear to be satisfactory. We have found that the low-metallicity H ii regions in the outer parts of spiral galaxies are more suitable objects for establishing the origin of the scatter than H ii regions in irregular galaxies. Our finding is the following. The positions of spiral galaxies of different morphological types in the N/O – O/H diagram are shown in Fig.5 by different symbols. The dashed lines correspond to Sb and Sbc galaxies (T-type = 3,4), and the solid lines to Scd and Sd galaxies (T-type = 6,7). Fig.5 shows clearly that the N/O values in H ii regions of galaxies of early morphological types are systematically higher than the N/O values in H ii regions with the same O/H value in galaxies of late morphological types. It can be also seen in Fig.6 where the N/O ratio at 12 + log(O/H) = 8.2 is shown as a function of numerical morphological T-type. It is interesting to note that although Vila-Costas & Edmunds (1992) have concluded that there is no obvious difference between morphological types, a hint that the N/O ratios in the H ii regions of the late-type spiral galaxies are lower than the ones in the H ii regions with the same oxygen abundance in early-type spiral galaxies can be seen in their Fig.5. The much more distinct correlation of the N/O ratio with galaxy morphological type in the present study is due to the fact that the positions of H ii regions in the N/O – O/H diagram derived here with the P – method are more accurate than those derived by Vila-Costas & Edmunds (1992).

It is well-known that galaxies of different morphological types have different star formation histories. The schematic star formation histories of galaxies of different morphological types according to Sandage (1986) are presented in Fig.7. The star formation rate is in arbitrary units. Fig.7 shows that the spiral galaxies with early morphological types have a significantly larger fraction of old stars (with ages 8 - 13 Gyr) than the galaxies of late morphological types. This suggests that the high N/O values in the galaxies of early morphological types can be caused by the contribution of low-mass stars (with masses around a solar mass) to the nitrogen production, while in the galaxies of late morphological types these stars have not yet returned their nucleosynthesis products to the interstellar medium because they have not had enough time to evolve. The long time delay for nitrogen production appears to be an important factor in the evolution of this element. The scatter in N/O values at a given O/H can be naturally explained by differences in star formation histories in galaxies. This conclusion is not new. More than twenty years ago, Edmunds & Pagel (1978) have suggested that observations of the N/O abundance ratio in external galaxies can be understood if nitrogen is manufactured principally in stars of 1 – 2.5 M. The N/O ratio of a galaxy then becomes an indicator of the time that has elapsed since the bulk of star formation occurred, or in other words of the nominal ”age” of the galaxy.

The explanation that the increase of the lower envelope of N/O with O/H, beginning roughly at 12 + log(O/H) = 8.3, is controlled by the metallicity-dependent nitrogen production in intermediate-mass stars is commonly accepted now.

Thus, the present and previous studies of N/O – O/H diagram lead to the following conclusions about the sites of nitrogen production: (1) at low metallicities the metallicity-independent nitrogen production takes place in short-lived massive stars with no time delay between the release of nitrogen and oxygen or/and in intermediate-mass stars with moderate time delay, with a characteristic time delay of a few hundred Myr between the release of nitrogen and oxygen; (2) at metallicities higher than roughly 12 + log(O/H) = 8.3, the metallicity-dependent nitrogen production by intermediate-mass stars dominates; (3) the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production with long time delay, with characteristic time delay of several Gyr, can be significant.

Observational data of other kinds can be used to verify and refine conclusions reached by us and other authors from consideration of the N/O – O/H diagram.

### 3.2 The self-enriched H ii regions

Generally, stars of different masses from all the previous star formation events can make contributions to the N abundances measured in the interstellar medium. Fortunately, there are cases where the contribution to nitrogen production from massive stars from a current star formation event can be established. Kunth & Sargent (1986) have suggested that H ii regions may ”pollute” themselves on short (106 yr) timescales with nucleosynthetic products from the current burst of star formation. This suggestion is not beyond question. There may be some time lag ($``$ 107 yrs) between supernova explosions and the appearance of the freshly produced oxygen in the warm phase of the interstellar gas (Tenorio-Tagle 1996; Kobulnicky & Skillman 1996, 1997). There are however examples where the enrichment in heavy elements by massive stars on short timescales is exhibited. Those examples can tell us something about the nitrogen production by massive stars.

Let us test the conclusion of Izotov & Thuan (1999) that the nitrogen in low-metallicity (with 12+log(O/H) $`<`$ 7.6) blue compact galaxies is produced by massive stars only. The best fit to Izotov & Thuan’s data results in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$O $``$ 1/40 (solid line in Fig.8a).

Kobulnicky & Skillman (1996) carried out an investigation of the multiple starburst knots in the nucleus of the low-metallicity irregular galaxy NGC4214. From optical spectroscopy at distinct spatial locations they reveal large scale (about 200 pc) variations in the oxygen abundance. The southernmost, and apparently youngest emission line region exhibits a higher oxygen abundance than the rest of the galaxy. The N/O ratio is lower in this region. Kobulnicky & Skillman suggest that recent oxygen polution from supernovae has occurred in this very young population of massive stars. Their data (taken from their Fig.8) are shown in Fig.8b by triangles. The variation of oxygen and nitrogen abundances computed with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N = $`\frac{1}{40}\mathrm{\Delta }`$O is shown by the solid line. Examination of Fig.8b shows that Kobulnicky and Skillman’s data agree satisfactory with the prediction of the model with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N = $`\frac{1}{40}\mathrm{\Delta }`$O (solid line), however these data agree equally satisfactory with the prediction of the model without nitrogen production by massive stars, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N = 0, (dashed line).

Cunha & Lambert (1992, 1994) have measured the N, C, O, Si, and Fe abundances of main-sequence B stars in the Orion star formation region. There is a time lag of about 11 Myr between the formation of the oldest and the youngest subgroups of stars in the Orion association. The stars in the youngest subgroup are enriched in heavy elements relative to the stars belonging to the oldest subgroup, i.e. the later subgeneration of stars have formed out of material whose chemical composition has been altered by the nucleosynthesis products of massive stars from previous subgenerations. Again, the track with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$O $``$ 1/40 (solid line) and the track with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N = 0 (dashed line) cannot be chosen on the basis of observational data (Fig.8c).

Thus, the consideration of the H ii regions taken to be self-enriched does not result in a firm argument pro or contra nitrogen production by massive stars.

### 3.3 The planetary nebulae

It is usually accepted that the oxygen abundances measured in planetary nebulae reflect the initial abundance of the progenitor stars while the nitrogen abundances in planetary nebulae with progenitors from some range of stellar mass are modified by the progenitor’s evolution. Then the oxygen abundance in the planetary nebula can serve as some kind of ”age” indicator of the progenitor if the chemical evolution of the galaxy (the history of galaxy enrichment in oxygen) is established. It should be stressed that we do not imply to derive the age of the progenitor of individual planetary nebula based on its oxygen abundance. Indeed, the temporal evolution of the oxygen abundance in our Galaxy is nonsmooth (Pilyugin & Edmunds 1996a,b), therefore the oxygen abundance in the individual planetary nebula is not a reliable ”age” indicator of its progenitor. We only mean that the assumption, that the oxygen-rich planetary nebulae (with 12+logO/H $`>`$ 7.7 in the case of the Small Magellanic Cloud) were formed from younger (in average) and therefore more massive stars than the oxygen-poor planetary nebulae (with 12+logO/H $`<`$ 7.5 in the case of the Small Magellanic Cloud), is justified. Then the examination of nitrogen abundances of planetary nebulae with different oxygen abundances allows to make conclusion about the contribution of the intermediate- and low-mass stars to the enrichment of the interstellar medium in nitrogen.

The determinations of the chemical composition in a number of planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud are available now (Richer 1993, Leisy & Dennefeld 1996, Costa et al. 2000). This data allows to make conclusion about the contribution of the intermediate- and low-mass stars to the enrichment of the interstellar medium in nitrogen. Richer (1993) reported the oxygen and nitrogen abundances for twenty-five planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud, Leisy & Dennefeld (1996) for fifteen planetary nebulae, and Costa et al. (2000) for twenty-one planetary nebulae

The list of Richer (1993) has ten planetary nebulae in common with the list of Leisy & Dennefeld (1996) and fifteen planetary nebulae in common with the list of Costa et al. (2000). Comparison of the oxygen abundances in common planetary nebulae shows that the ones derived by Costa et al. (2000) and Leisy & Dennefeld (1996) are shifted towards higher oxygen abundances when compared to those derived by Richer (1993). In order to have a homogeneous set of abundances, the abundances of both oxygen and nitrogen of Costa et al. and of Leisy & Dennefeld were reduced to the system of Richer. We chose Richer’s system because his planetary nebulae oxygen abundances are in better agreement with those in H ii regions.

The O/H - N/O diagram for H ii regions and planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud is shown in Fig.9. The points are original data for planetary nebulae from Richer (1993), the triangles are the corrected data for planetary nebulae from Leisy & Dennefeld (1996), the crosses are the corrected data for planetary nebulae from Costa et al. (2000). The open circles are data for H ii regions from Table 1. Inspection of Fig.9 shows that the scatter of oxygen abundances in planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud is large, more than one order of magnitude. An anti-correlation between N/O and O/H is clearly seen. The most evident explanation of the scatter is that the oxygen abundance of planetary nebulae traces the time of the progenitor star formation, the oxygen-poor planetary nebulae progenitors being older (Leisy & Dennefeld 1996, Costa et al. 2000).

Other possible origins of the oxygen abundance scatter and the N/O – O/H trend have also been discussed in the literature. Leisy & Dennefeld (1996, 2000) considered the possibility that the oxygen abundance in planetary nebulae does not reflect the initial composition of the progenitor star, that it can be destroyed in Type I planetary nebulae (He-N rich objects (Peimbert 1978)) as well as produced in non-Type I planetary nebulae, during the progenitor star life-time. If this is the major reason for the oxygen abundance scatter and the N/O – O/H trend then: i) the Ar/O ratio would be higher in planetary nebulae with low O abundances and ii) the N/Ar – Ar/H diagram would differ radically from the N/O – O/H diagram since Ar is not affected by the evolution of intermediate-mass stars. Milingo, Henry, & Kwitter (2002) have undertaken a large spectroscopic survey of Galactic planetary nebulae with the goal of providing a homogeneous spectroscopic database, as well as a set of consistently determined abundances, especially for oxygen, sulfur, chlorine, and argon. Their data (their Fig.2) do not show a tendency for Ar/O to decrease with O/H. They found an average Ar/O = 0.0051 $`\pm `$ 0.0020 for planetary nebulae, in agreement with Ar/O = 0.0055 derived by Izotov & Thuan (1999) for H ii regions in blue compact dwarf galaxies.

Fig.10 shows the N/O – O/H diagram (points) together with the N/Ar – Ar/H diagram (pluses) for planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The original data from Leisy & Dennefeld (1996) and Costa et al. (2000) are shown. There is both a scatter in argon abundances and an anti-correlation between N/Ar and Ar/H. Given that Ar/O is independent of O/H and that the N/Ar – Ar/H diagram is similar to the N/O – O/H diagram, one can conclude that possible oxygen production and/or destruction during the progenitor star life-time do not dramatically change the oxygen abundance of the progenitor star, and oxygen can be used as a metallicity tracer, at least in the first approximation.

The bulk of planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud has oxygen abundances compatible with those in H ii regions (Fig.9), a fact already mentioned by different authors. Based on their model for the chemical evolution of the Small Magellanic Cloud, Costa et al. (2000) have concluded that the progenitors of these planetary nebulae have been formed within the last 1 – 2 Gyr. They also estimated an age of about 12 Gyr for the progenitor of the most oxygen-poor planetary nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Thus, the oxygen abundances measured in planetary nebulae reflect the initial abundance of the progenitor stars while the nitrogen abundances are modified by the progenitors’ evolution. If the initial nitrogen abundance of the progenitor star is known, then the difference between the amount of nitrogen in the ejected matter (i.e in the planetary nebula) and the initial amount of nitrogen in this matter is the amount of nitrogen manufactured by the star. The initial nitrogen abundance in the progenitor star can be estimated in the following way. Examination of Table 1 shows that the variation in the N/O ratio from H ii region to H ii region in the Small Magellanic Cloud is small within the errors in abundance determinations. Thus we can adopt this N/O ratio corresponds as the ”equilibrium” ratio in the interstellar medium of the Small Magellanic Cloud at the present-day epoch. It is unlikely that this value is increased or decreased by the same amount of local self-enrichment in nitrogen or oxygen in all HII regions. As shown above, the equilibrium N/O ratio in the interstellar medium of a galaxy can be increased by the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production. The N/O ratio in the H ii regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud is very close to that in the H ii regions of the most oxygen-poor blue compact galaxies, Fig.1, i.e. the present-day equilibrium N/O ratio in the interstellar medium of the Small Magellanic Cloud corresponds to the minimum value of the N/O ratio. It has not changed up to now, and therefore can be adopted as the initial N/O ratio for the progenitor star of any age. Thus, the initial nitrogen abundance in the progenitor star can be estimated from the oxygen abundance measured in the planetary nebula (since this oxygen abundance reflects the initial oxygen abundance of the progenitor star) and from the N/O ratio measured in H ii regions. The amount of nitrogen manufactured in the star can then be estimated by subtracting the initial nitrogen abundance from the amount of nitrogen observed in the planetary nebula. The contribution of low mass stars to the nitrogen production can then be compared to that of the intermediate mass stars, as shown below.

Galactic Type I (nitrogen-rich) planetary nebulae are believed to correspond to the high mass end of the stellar progenitors of planetary nebulae (Torres-Peimbert & Peimbert 1997, and references therein). The planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud do not appear to fit in this scheme. Fig.9 shows that nitrogen abundances in oxygen-poor planetary nebulae are higher by a factor 3-5 than that in oxygen-rich ones. Since the oxygen-poor planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud seem to be formed from older and therefore less massive stars, then Type I planetary nebulae progenitors can be less massive than expected. Leisy & Dennefeld (1996) have concluded that, with their definition based only on N and He abundances, Type I planetary nebulae do not form an homogeneous class.

Let us consider the Milky Way planetary nebulae. In contrast to the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way shows both an oxygen and nitrogen radial abundance gradient. In order to exclude initial chemical composition differences of the planetary nebula progenitors caused by the radial abundance gradient, only planetary nebulae in the solar vicinity, with galactocentric distances between 7.5 and 9.5 kpc, will be considered. Abundances in large samples of Galactic planetary nebulae have been determined by Aller & Czyzak (1983), Aller & Keyes (1987), Köppen, Acker, & Stenholm (1991), and Kingsburgh & Barlow (1994). The positions of the Galactic solar vicinity planetary nebulae in the N/O – O/H diagram are shown in Fig.11 by points. The galactocentric distances were obtained using the distances to planetary nebulae from Cahn et al. (1992). When the distance is not given by Cahn et al., it is taken from Kingsburgh & English (1992) or from Maciel (1984). The open circle in Fig.11 corresponds to the oxygen and nitrogen abundances at the solar galactocentric distance as traced by the H ii regions (Pilyugin, Ferrini, & Shkvarun, 2002). The planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud are shown by pluses in Fig.11, the open square corresponds to the average N/O and O/H values in the H ii regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Inspection of Fig.11 shows that the bulk of Galactic planetary nebulae have oxygen abundances in a relatively narrow range. These planetary nebulae are believed to be relatively ”young”, i.e. they correspond to the intermediate-mass stellar progenitors of planetary nebulae The difference between nitrogen abundances in these planetary nebulae and in H ii regions (this difference reflects the contribution of freshly produced nitrogen) is higher than the corresponding value for the ”young” planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is not surprising and confirms the widely accepted point of view that the increase of the lower envelope of N/O with O/H, beginning at roughly at 12 + log(O/H) = 8.3, is explained by the fact that the amount of nitrogen manufactured in the intermediate-mass stars increases with metallicity.

A few Galactic planetary nebulae have low oxygen abundances. If the oxygen abundance of planetary nebula traces the time of the progenitor star formation then the oxygen-poor Galactic planetary nebulae progenitors are old low-mass stars. However, the possibility that the oxygen-poor Galactic planetary nebulae were formed from matter captured by our Galaxy from the Small Magellanic Cloud cannot be excluded. The Magellanic Stream is an excellent example of such a present-day capture. In this case the oxygen-poor Galactic planetary nebulae are ”pseudo-old”, i.e. they can also correspond to the intermediate-mass stellar progenitors of planetary nebulae like the oxygen-rich planetary nebulae. Although such a possibility cannot be excluded, for further discussion, we shall consider that the oxygen-poor Galactic planetary nebulae are really ”old”, i.e their progenitors are old low-mass stars.

Comparison between the old planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way Galaxy shows that N/O in old planetary nebulae slightly decreases with metallicity in contrast to the young planetary nebulae which show clearly the tendency for N/O to increase with O/H, Fig.11. This suggests that the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production decreases with metallicity as compared to the contribution of intermediate-mass stars. Data on old planetary nebulae in the Milky Way Galaxy are few in number, therefore more and better data are needed to verify this suggestion.

The average nitrogen abundance in the old planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud is around 40-60 N atoms per million H atoms, Fig.9. Unfortunately, young planetary nebulae with comparably low oxygen abundances (7.3 $`<`$ 12+log(O/H) $`<`$ 7.5) are not available, therefore a direct comparison of the contributions of low-mass and intermediate-mass stars to the nitrogen production for low metallicities is not possible. However, if we adopt the usual assumption that the amount of nitrogen manufactured by intermediate-mass stars is independent of metallicity in the low metallicity range, then the young planetary nebulae with oxygen abundances around 12+log(O/H) = 8.1 can be used for such a comparison. The average nitrogen abundance in the young planetary nebulae of the Small Magellanic Cloud is around 10-15 N atoms per million H atoms (Fig.9). At the same time, the fraction of the material returned into the interstellar medium by the intermediate-mass stars (2M $`÷`$ 8M) of a single stellar population is comparable with the fraction returned by the low-mass stars ($`<`$ 2M). Thus, in the low metallicity range, the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production appears to be rather significant and may even exceed the contribution of the intermediate-mass stars. The comparison between young planetary nebulae in the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Small Magellanic Cloud shows that there is a tendency for an increase of the amount of nitrogen manufactured in the intermediate-mass stars with metallicity. If this tendency holds also in the very low metallicity range, then the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production exceeds significantly the contribution of the intermediate-mass stars at very low metallicities.

In summary, consideration of planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way Galaxy has shown that the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production is appreciable, and that at low metallicities the contribution of low-mass stars can exceed the contribution of the intermediate-mass stars. This confirms our conclusion, reached from the consideration of the N/O – O/H diagram for spiral galaxies of different morphological types, that there is a long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production.

## 4 Discussion

The present and previous studies suggest that at low metallicities the nitrogen production can take place i) in short-lived massive stars with no time delay between the release of nitrogen and oxygen, ii) in intermediate-mass stars with a moderate time delay of a few hundred Myr between the release of nitrogen and oxygen, iii) in low-mass stars with a long time delay of a several Gyr between the release of nitrogen and oxygen. It is difficult to differentiate the contributions of massive and intermediate-mass stars to the enrichment of interstellar medium in nitrogen on the base of available observational data. An attempt to directly estimate the nitrogen production by massive stars from observational data of self-enriched H ii regions has not resulted in a firm conclusion. Then the lowest observed N/O value in low-metallicity H ii regions (where the contribution of the massive stars from current star formation burst to the gas enrichment in heavy elements could be dominant) can be used as an estimate of the nitrogen production by massive stars. The delayed-release hypothesis, i.e. the moderate-time-delayed production of nitrogen by intermediate mass stars, predicts that N/O drops while O/H increases as massive stars begin to die and eject oxygen into the interstellar medium. At the point when all the massive stars have died, the N/O value is minimum. In the case of a strong star formation burst in low-metallicity environment, the minimum N/O value corresponds approximately (or exactly in the case of the very first star formation burst) to the ratio of N to O yields in massive stars.

If the conclusion of Izotov & Thuan (1999) – that the nitrogen observed in low-metallicity (12+log(O/H) $`<`$ 7.6) blue compact galaxies has been produced by massive stars only – is correct, then the N/O ratio in these galaxies (log(N/O) = –1.6) is a lower limit for the global N/O ratio. In that case, there is little room left for the nitrogen production by intermediate-mass stars. However, the N/O ratio in the H ii regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud is very close to that in the H ii regions of the most oxygen-poor blue compact galaxies. The bulk of the intermediate-mass stars of the Small Magellanic Cloud have certainly had enough time to evolve (Pagel & Tautvais̆iene 1998, Mighell et al. 1998, Rich et al. 2000). If the value of log(N/O) = –1.6 corresponds to the element production by massive stars, then the contribution of intermediate-mass stars to the N/O ratio in the Small Magellanic Cloud (log(N/O) = –1.55, Table 1) is negligibly small. It is worth noting that while the evolutionary intermediate-mass star models predict usually a significant nitrogen production (Renzini & Voli 1981, van den Hoek & Groenewegen 1997, Marigo 1996,1998,2001), the non-rotating models of Meynet & Maeder (2002a,b) show very small nitrogen yields by intermediate-mass stars in low-metallicity environment. We do not consider the very small nitrogen yields by non-rotating intermediate-mass stars of Meynet & Maeder as undisputed argument in favor of negligible small contribution of intermediate-mass stars to the enrichment of interstellar gas in nitrogen in low-metallicity environment, we only would like to note that such possibility cannot be excluded on the base of the existing models.

A crucial argument in favor of a significant production of nitrogen by intermediate-mass stars would be the existence of systems with very low N/O ratios. Inspection of Fig.1 shows that two objects from the list of Kobulnicky & Skillman (1998), CG 1116+51 and Tol 65, have values of log N/O appreciably lower than –1.6. However, Izotov et al. (2001) have recently redetermined the abundances for Tol 65 (Izotov et al. 2001) and found log(N/O) = –1.642$`\pm `$0.024 for Tol 65, similar to other low-metallicity blue compact galaxies. Van Zee et al. (1997, 1998a) have also found some galaxies with very low log(N/O) ($`<`$ –1.7). Izotov & Thuan (1999) have argued that these low values can be caused by systematic errors. The reality of the low nitrogen abundances obtained in damped Ly$`\alpha `$ systems (Pettini et al. 1995, Lu et al. 1998, Pettini et al. 2002, Prochaska et al. 2002) was questioned by Izotov & Thuan (1999). Therefore we will not repeat the discussion of these objects here. Recall that the low-metallicity range of the observed N/O – O/H diagram for the H ii regions of irregular and blue compact galaxies has appreciably changed over the last decade. Can one exclude the possibility that the disagreement between the observed N/O – O/H diagram for the H ii regions of irregular and blue compact galaxies and the observed N/O – O/H diagram for the damped Ly$`\alpha `$ systems disappear in the near future?

Contini et al. (2002) have discussed the chemical properties of a sample of UV-selected galaxies, thought to be in a special stage in their evolution, following a powerful starburst. Several galaxies in the list of Contini et al. (2002) have values of log(N/O) lower than –1.6. Unfortunately, those objects fall in or close to the transition region of the R23 – O/H diagram, causing a large uncertainty in their abundance determination. The oxygen abundances in two objects with low N/O ratio (#30 and #46) reported by Contini et al. are lower than 12+log(O/H)=8.0. Therefore these objects are expected to belong to the lower branch of the R23 – O/H diagram, and their abundances can be derived through the P – method for the lower branch of the R23 – O/H diagram. This results in 12 + log(O/H)P = 7.74 for object #30 (as compared to 12+log(O/H) = 7.86 found by Contini et al. (2002) using the calibration of McGaugh 1991) and log(N/O)P = -1.58 (as compared to log(N/O) = -1.78 found by Contini et al. 2002). The application of the P – method to the #46 object results in 12 + log(O/H)P = 8.07 (12+log(O/H) = 7.99 was found by Contini et al. 2002). Thus this object does not belong to the lower branch of the R23 – O/H diagram, and its abundances cannot be found through the P – method. It should be noted that the diagnostic line \[OIII\]$`\lambda 4363`$ should be detectable in low-metallicity objects like #30 and #46 in better quality spectra.

Thus, the level of log(N/O) = –1.6 corresponds to the cumulative nitrogen to oxygen yields ratio in massive and intermediate-mass stars. At present time there are no firm arguments against the conclusion of Izotov & Thuan (1999) that the nitrogen in low-metallicity blue compact galaxies has been produced by massive stars only and the level of log(N/O) = –1.6 is, in fact, defined by the nitrogen to oxygen yield ratio in massive stars. On the other hand, the constancy of N/O ratios in low-metallicity blue compact galaxies can be equally well reproduced under the assumption that a significant part of nitrogen is produced by intermediate-mass stars, i.e. the level of log(N/O) = –1.6 is defined by the cumulative nitrogen to oxygen yield ratio in massive and intermediate-mass stars (Pilyugin 1999). Therefore the adopted contributions of massive and intermediate-mass stars to the nitrogen production are based more on belief than on proof.

The principal result obtained here is that there is a long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production by low-mass stars. It is this contribution that produces the high log(N/O) $`>`$ –1.6 in some low-metallicity galaxies. Since the N/O ratio in the H ii regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud is close to its lowest level, one can conclude that the bulk of the low-mass stars of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which are responsible for the long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production, have not had enough time to evolve. Pagel & Tautvais̆iene (1998) have found that the age-metallicity relation for the Small Magellanic Cloud is well reproduced by a model in which the majority of the stars are under 4 Gyr old. In this case the low-mass stars with lifetimes longer than 4 Gyr are responsible for the long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production. Recently Rich et al. (2000) have studied the age distribution of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud. They have found that the clusters appear to have formed in two brief intervals, the oldest 8$`\pm `$2 Gyr ago and a more recent burst 2$`\pm `$0.5 Gyr ago. If the history of cluster formation reflects the total star formation history in the Small Magellanic Cloud, then the low-mass stars with lifetimes longer than 8$`\pm `$2 Gyr are responsible for the long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production.

As noted above, it is now commonly accepted now that the increase of the N/O with O/H at higher metallicities is caused by the metallicity-dependent nitrogen production in intermediate-mass stars in high-metallicity environment. However, one comment should be made. Henry et al. (2000) have fit their model to the N/O versus O/H trend for a sample of galaxies, and have found that nitrogen demonstrates a steeper dependence on metallicity than expected from a simple secondary behaviour. Thurston et al. (1996) have determined the slopes of a linear fit to the N/O versus O/H data for individual galaxies in their sample, and have found that N/O is varying less steeply with metallicity, with slopes between 0.15 and 1.14, as compared with the 1.0 expected from a simple secondary behaviour. The slopes of a linear fit to the N/O versus O/H data for individual galaxies in our sample show also a large spread (Fig.5), but about 2/3 of the galaxies show slopes less 1.0. The shape of the N/O trend predicted by the model of Henry et al. (2000) corresponds well to the shape of the lower envelope exhibited by the data (see their Fig.2b). However, close examination of our Fig.5 clearly shows that the N/O vs. O/H trends for individual galaxies do not correspond well to the shape of the lower envelope for all galaxies. Thus, the use of a mix of data including galaxies with different star formation histories – and consequently, with different histories of heavy element enrichment – can result in misleading conclusions on the behaviour of N/O with O/H.

The value of N/O for a given O/H and the behaviour of N/O with O/H across the galaxy contain important information about the history of enrichment of that galaxy in heavy elements (and consequently, about the star formation history). This information is necessary for the construction of reliable models for the chemical evolution of galaxies. In turn, the construction of detailed models for galaxies of different morphological types can help to define more precisely the sites of nitrogen production. The construction of models for the chemical evolution of galaxies of different morphological types will be carried out in future studies.

## 5 Conclusions

The problem of the origin of nitrogen has been considered within the framework of an empirical approach. The oxygen abundances and nitrogen to oxygen abundances ratios have been derived in H ii regions of a number of spiral galaxies using the recently suggested P – method for more than six hundred published spectra. The N/O – O/H diagram for H ii regions in irregular and spiral galaxies has then been constructed.

It has been found that the level of log(N/O) = –1.6 corresponds to the cumulative nitrogen and oxygen productions by massive and intermediate-mass stars. The constancy of N/O ratios in low-metallicity galaxies can be as well reproduced under the assumption that massive stars make a dominant contribution to the nitrogen production in low-metallicity environments, as under the assumption that a significant part of nitrogen is produced by intermediate-mass stars. The available data do not allow to decide between these two possibilities.

It has been found that the N/O values in H ii regions of spiral galaxies of early morphological types are higher than those in H ii regions with the same metallicity in spiral galaxies of late morphological types. This suggests that there is a long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production. The scatter in N/O values at a given O/H can be naturally explained by differences in star formation histories in galaxies. The low-metallicity dwarf galaxies with N/O close to the level of log(N/O) = –1.6 do not contain an appreciable amount of old stars. The long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production by old low-mass stars is responsible for the high log(N/O) $`>`$ –1.6 in some low-metallicity galaxies.

The N/O ratio of a galaxy is an indicator of the time that has elapsed since the bulk of star formation occurred, or in other words of the nominal ”age” of the galaxy as suggested by Edmunds & Pagel (1978).

Consideration of the planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way Galaxy suggests that the contribution of low-mass stars to the nitrogen production is appreciable, and at low metallicities the contribution of low-mass stars can exceed the contribution of the intermediate-mass stars. This confirms our conclusion, reached from the consideration of the N/O – O/H diagram for spiral galaxies of different morphological types, that there is a long-time-delayed contribution to the nitrogen production.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Y. Izotov and J. Köppen for useful discussions. We thank the referee, G.Meynet, for constructive comments. This study was partly supported (L.S.P.) by the Joint Research Project between Eastern Europe and Switzerland (SCOPE) No. 7UKPJ62178, the NATO grant PST.CLG.976036, and the Italian national grant delivered by the MURST.