Synthetic absorption in star forming regions

The equivalent widths and line profiles are studied as a function of lower and upper mass limits and slope of the mass function as well as the age. It is shown that the equivalent widths of the Balmer lines are increasing during the course of evolution, while the strength of the neutral and ionized helium lines decreases monotonically. Both the hydrogen and helium lines show high sensitivity to variations in the initial mass function (IMF).

The Balmer line equivalent widths range from about 1.5 to 6.5A, depending on the IMF parameters used. As anticipated, these numbers are rather insensitive to the metallicity. Contrary to what has been claimed, the Balmer lines are prominent even if the lower mass limit is as high as 10M_{sun}_.

It has been proposed that the weak hydrogen lines sometimes seen in starburst galaxies, often interpreted as evidence for a deficiency in low mass stars, could be due to the finite lifetimes of pre-main sequence stars. This analysis shows that it is very much dependent on the slope of the mass function. The equivalent width of the HeI-4471A line never exceeds 0.35A for any choice of the IMF parameters while the equivalent width of the HeII-4686A line reaches at the most 0.20A using the most top-heavy IMF.

As expected, these numbers are only slightly dependent on the metallicity in the optical spectral region.