Description
Primordial stars are expected to be very massive and hot, producing copious amounts of hard ionizing radiation. The best place to study hard ionizing radiation in the local universe is in very metal- deficient blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxies. We have carried out a MMT spectroscopic search for [NeV] {lambda}3426 (ionization potential of 7.1Ryd), [FeV] {lambda}4227 (ionization potential of 4Ryd), and HeII {lambda}4686 (ionization potential of 4Ryd) emission in a sample of 18 BCDs. We have added data from previous work and from the Data Release 3 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Cat. <II/259>). In total, we have assembled a BCD high-ionization sample with [NeV] emission in four galaxies, [FeV] emission in 15 galaxies, and HeII emission in 465 galaxies.
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