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The abundance of oxygen in galaxies is widely used in furthering ourunderstanding of galaxy formation and evolution. Unfortunately, directmeasurements of O/H in the neutral gas are extremely difficult to obtain, asthe only OI line available within the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) UVwavelength range (1150-3200 A) is often saturated. As such, proxies for oxygenare needed to indirectly derive O/H via the assumption that solar ratios basedon local Milky Way sight lines hold in different environments. In this paper weassess the validity of using two such proxies, PII and SII, within more typicalstar-forming environments. Using HST-Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) far-UV(FUV) spectra of a sample of nearby star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and the oxygenabundances in their ionized gas, we demonstrate that both P and S are mildlydepleted with respect to O and follow a trend, log(PII/SII)= -1.73+/-0.18, inexcellent agreement with the solar ratio of log(P/S)_sol=-1.71+/-0.04 over thelarge range of metallicities (0.03-3.2 Z_sol) and H I column densities (log[N(HI)/cm^-2] =18.44-21.28) spanned by the sample. From literature data we showevidence that both elements individually trace oxygen according to theirrespective solar ratios across a wide range of environments. Our findingsdemonstrate that the solar ratios of log(P/O)_sol=-3.28+/-0.06 andlog(S/O)_sol=-1.57+/-0.06 can both be used to derive reliable O/H abundances inthe neutral gas of local and high-redshift SFGs. The difference between O/H inthe ionized- and neutral-gas phases is studied with respect to metallicity andH I content. The observed trends are consistent with galactic outflows and/orstar formation inefficiency affecting the most metal-poor galaxies, with thepossibility of primordial gas accretion at all metallicities.

Tackling the Saturation of Oxygen: The Use of Phosphorus and Sulphur as Proxies Within the Neutral Interstellar Medium of Star-Forming Galaxies