[CII] 158 μm emission and metallicity in photon dominated regions

We study the effects of a metallicity variation on the thermal balance and [CII] fine-structure line strengths in interstellar photon dominated regions (PDRs). We find that a reduction in the dust-to-gas ratio and the abundance of heavy elements in the gas phase changes the heat balance of the gas in PDRs. The surface temperature of PDRs decreases as the metallicity decreases except for high density (n > 10(6) cm(-3)) clouds exposed to weak (chi < 100) FUV fields where vibrational H-2-deexcitation heating dominates over photoelectric heating of the gas. We incorporate the metallicity dependence in our KOSMA-tau PDR model to study the metallicity dependence of [CII]/CO line ratios in low metallicity galaxies. We find that the main trend in the variation of the observed CII/CO ratio with metallicity is well reproduced by a single spherical clump, and does not necessarily require an ensemble of clumps as in the semi-analytical model presented by Bolatto et al. (1999).