Ca depletion and the presence of dust in large scale nebulosities in radiogalaxies (I)

Abstract

We show that the study of the Calcium depletion is a valid an highly sensitive method for investigating the chemical and physical history of the very extended ionized nebulae seen around radio galaxies (EELR), massive ellipticals and `cooling flow' galaxies. By observing the near IR spectrum of nebular regions characterized by low excitation emission lines (LINER-like), we can use the intensity of the [CaII]$λλ7291,7324$Å doublet --relative to other lines, like H$α$-- to infer the amount of Calcium depletion onto dust grains. The presence of dust in these objects --which does not necessarily result in a measurable level of extinction-- would favour a `galactic debris' rather than a `cooling flow' origin for the emitting gas. Before aplying such test to our data, we study four possible alternative mechanisms to dust depletion and which could have explained the absence of the [CaII] lines: a) ionization of Ca$^+$ from its metastable level, b) thermal ionization of Ca$^+$, c) a high ionization parameter and/or a harder ionizing contiuum than usually asummed and d) matter bounded models associated to a hard ionizing continuum. We show that none of these alternative mechanisms explain the absence of the [CaII] lines, except possibly for the highly ionized EELR where a high ionization parameter is required combined with a soft power law. We thus conclude that for the other low excitation emission regions (cooling flows, liners, low excitation EELR), the abscence of the CaII lines {\it must} be due to the depletion of Calcium onto dust grains.