Accurate oxygen abundance of interstellar gas in Mrk 71 from optical and infrared spectra

The heavy element content (‘metallicity’) of the Universe is a record of the total star formation history. Gas-phase metallicity in galaxies, as well as its evolution with time, is of particular interest as a tracer of accretion and outflow processes. However, metallicities from the widely used electron temperature ( T e ) method are typically approximately two times lower than the values based on the recombination line method. This ‘abundance discrepancy factor’ is well known and is commonly ascribed to bias due to temperature fluctuations. We present a measurement of oxygen abundance in the nearby (3.4-Mpc) system, Markarian 71, using a combination of optical and far-infrared emission lines to measure and correct for temperature fluctuation effects. Our far-infrared result is inconsistent (>2 σ significance) with the metallicity from recombination lines and, instead, indicates little to no bias in the standard T e method, ruling out the long-standing hypothesis that the abundance discrepancy factor is explained by temperature fluctuations for this object. Our results provide a framework to accurately measure metallicity across cosmic history, including with recent data reaching within the first billion years, with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.