CHAOS VIII: Far-Ultraviolet Spectra of M101 and The Impact of Wolf-Rayet Stars

We investigate the stellar and nebular properties of 9 H II regions in the spiral galaxy M101 with far-ultraviolet (FUV; ~900-2000 \r{A}) and optical (~3200-10000 \r{A}) spectra. We detect significant C III] 1907,1909 nebular emission in 7 regions, but O III] 1666 only in the lowest-metallicity region. We produce new analytic functions of the carbon ICF as a function of metallicity in order to perform a preliminary C/O abundance analysis. The FUV spectra also contain numerous stellar emission and P-Cygni features that we fit with luminosity-weighted combinations of single-burst Starburst99 and BPASS models. We find that the best-fit Starburst99 models closely match the observed very-high-ionization P-Cygni features, requiring very-hot, young (~< 3 Myr), metal-enriched massive stars. The youngest stellar populations are strongly correlated with broad He II emission, nitrogen Wolf-Rayet (WR) FUV and optical spectral features, and enhanced N/O gas abundances. Thus, the short-lived WR phase may be driving excess emission in several N P-Cygni wind features (955 \r{A}, 991 \r{A}, 1720 \r{A}) that bias the stellar continuum fits to higher metallicities relative to the gas-phase metallicities. Accurate characterization of these H II regions requires additional inclusion of WR stars in the stellar population synthesis models. Our FUV spectra demonstrate that the ~900-1200 \r{A} FUV can provide a strong test-bed for future WR atmosphere and evolution models.
Comment: 24 ages, 12 figures, accepted to ApJ