The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z≳2

By D. Erb, A. Shapley, M. Pettini, C. Steidel, Naveen A. Reddy, K. Adelberger. 2006

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We use a sample of 87 rest-frame UV-selected star-forming galaxies with mean spectroscopic redshift ⟨z⟩ = 2.26 ± 0.17 to study the correlation between metallicity and stellar mass at high redshift. Using stellar masses determined from SED fitting to observed 0.3-8 μm photometry, we divide the sample into six bins in stellar mass and construct six composite Hα + [N ] spectra from all of the objects in each bin. We estimate the mean oxygen abundance in each bin from the [N II]/Hα ratio and find a monotonic increase in metallicity with increasing stellar mass, from 12 + log(O/H) < 8.2 for galaxies with ⟨M⋆⟩ = 2.7 × 109 M☉ to 12 + log(O/H) = 8.6 for galaxies with ⟨M⋆⟩ = 1.0 × 1011 M☉. We use the empirical relation between SFR density and gas density to estimate the gas fractions of the galaxies, finding an increase in gas fraction with decreasing stellar mass. These gas fractions, combined with the observed metallicities, allow the estimation of the effective yield yeff as a function of stellar mass; in constrast to observations in the local universe, which show a decrease in yeff with decreasing baryonic mass, we find a slight increase. Such a variation of metallicity with gas fraction is best fitted by a model with supersolar yield and an outflow rate ~4 times higher than the SFR. We conclude that the mass-metallicity relation at high redshift is driven by the increase in metallicity as the gas fraction decreases through star formation and is likely modulated by metal loss from strong outflows in galaxies of all masses.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/41abdfedd57b6c9fa7620d94eb8a76a7c8c6b045

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Citations in the corpus

• STRONG NEBULAR LINE RATIOS IN THE SPECTRA of z ∼ 2–3 STAR FORMING GALAXIES: FIRST RESULTS FROM KBSS-MOSFIRE (2014, methodology): “Perhaps the best such interval is 2.0 <∼ z <∼ 2.6 (e.g., Erb et al. 2006c), where Hα, [NII], and [SII] fall in the K band, [OIII] and Hβ fall in H, and [OII] and [NeIII] in J.”
• On Extending the Mass-Metallicity Relation of Galaxies by 2.5 Decades in Stellar Mass (2006, background): “…(see, e.g., Kobulnicky & Zaritsky 1999; Kobulnicky et al. 2003; Liang et al. 2004; Kobulnicky & Kewley 2004; Shapley et al. 2004; Gallazzi et al. 2005; Hoyos et al. 2005; Maier et al. 2005; Savaglio et al. 2005; Shapley et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Lamareille et al. 2006; Liang et al. 2006).”
• THE EVOLUTION OF INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM MASS PROBED BY DUST EMISSION: ALMA OBSERVATIONS AT z = 0.3–2 (2014, methodology): “In our ALMA observations, we intentionally sample high stellar mass galaxies which should have close to solar metallicity (Erb et al. 2006) in order to avoid the issue of possible variations in dust-to-gas ratios at low metallicity.”
• UV-CONTINUUM SLOPES OF >4000 z ∼ 4–8 GALAXIES FROM THE HUDF/XDF, HUDF09, ERS, CANDELS-SOUTH, AND CANDELS-NORTH FIELDS (2013, background): “This is likely a manifestation of the well-known massmetallicity relation (e.g., Tremonti et al. 2004; Erb et al. 2006a; Maiolino et al. 2008) in galaxies at z & 4, with UV luminosity roughly tracing with mass and β tracing dust extinction and metallicity (Meurer et al. 1999; Bouwens et al. 2009;…”
• THE UNIVERSAL RELATION OF GALACTIC CHEMICAL EVOLUTION: THE ORIGIN OF THE MASS–METALLICITY RELATION (2014, background): “The MZ relation is observed out to z ∼ 3 (Savaglio et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Zahid et al. 2011; Yabe et al. 2012; Zahid et al. 2012b, 2013a,b, and many others) and perhaps beyond (Laskar et al. 2011; Møller et al. 2013).”
• THE UNIVERSAL STELLAR MASS–STELLAR METALLICITY RELATION FOR DWARF GALAXIES (2013, background): “Erb et al. (2006) found that the relation persists, but evolves in the sense that high-redshift galaxies are more metal-poor at a given stellar mass than galaxies in the local universe.”
• JWST Census for the Mass–Metallicity Star Formation Relations at z = 4–10 with Self-consistent Flux Calibration and Proper Metallicity Calibrators (2023, background): “The results by Savaglio et al. ( 2005 ) and Erb et al. ( 2006 ) are revisited by Maiolino et al. ( 2008 ) and their metallicities are remeasured.”
• VERY STRONG EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES IN THE WFC3 INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC PARALLEL SURVEY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES, (2011, methodology): “The techniques used for the selection of galaxies include mostly the optical or NIR colors and UV continuum (e.g. Steidel et al. 2004; Daddi et al. 2004; Papovich et al. 2006; Steidel et al. 1996; Shapley et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006a; Schiminovich et al. 2007).”
• Galaxies with Wolf-Rayet signatures in the low-redshift Universe. A survey using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2008, background): “The open red squares indicate five galaxies lying well above the main sample of galaxies, in fact close to the location of the z ∼ 2 galaxies studied by Erb et al. (2006).”
• THEORETICAL EVOLUTION OF OPTICAL STRONG LINES ACROSS COSMIC TIME (2013, background): “For the metallicities of most high redshift galaxies (log(O/H) + 12 < 8.6; Erb et al. 2006; Wuyts et al. 2012b; Yuan et al. 2012), a high ionization parameter will raise the [O III]/Hβ ratio such that high 8 redshift galaxies will lie above the local abundance sequence, as observed.”
• CO excitation of normal star forming galaxies out to $z=1.5$ as regulated by the properties of their interstellar medium (2014, background): “Their metal content is decreasing, with metallicity at fixed stellar mass declining by more than a factor of 2 towardsz = 2 (Erb et al 2006; Maier et al 2014; Steidel et al 2014), and with some hints existing of a much more rapid decrease at higher redshifts (Troncoso et al 2014).”
• A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, methodology): “Results are cross-checked with 15 galaxies from Erb et al. (2006) and found to be in relatively good agreement (∼ 0.25 dex scatter; see their Fig.”
• The origin of the galaxy mass-metallicity relation and implications for galactic outflows (2007, methodology): “…metallicities across five decades in stellar mass. Finally, the MZR is observed to evolve slowly such that galaxies of a given stellar mass are only moderately more enriched today as compared to in the early Universe (Shapley et al. 2005; Savaglio et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Berger et al. 2006).”
• THE STELLAR MASS CONTENT OF SUBMILLIMETER-SELECTED GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…metallicity models based on the findings of Swinbank et al. (2004) that SMGs have metallicities consistent with those of UV-selected galaxies of similar redshift, which for the most massive examples have approximately solar metallicities (Erb et al. 2006a),and the findings of Tecza et al. (2004).”
• ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN STAR FORMATION AND FEEDBACK IN GALAXY FORMATION SIMULATIONS (2014, methodology): “We compare the simulations with observational data of galaxies at z ∼ 0.07 (as inferred by Kewley & Ellison 2008), z ∼ 2.2 (Erb et al. 2006) and z ∼ 3.5, where a uniform calibration of metallicity indicators was used across all redshifts (Maiolino et al. 2008).”
• THE MOSDEF SURVEY: EXCITATION PROPERTIES OF z ∼ 2.3 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2014, background): “Figure 5 (right) in fact reflects the well-known evolution in the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) observed between z ∼ 0 and z ∼ 2 (e.g., Erb et al. 2006a; Sanders et al. 2014; Steidel et al. 2014).”
• Star Formation and Extinction in Redshift z~2 Galaxies: Inferences from Spitzer MIPS Observations (2006, methodology): “…declining star formation history (i.e., the model that appears to best fit the observed metallicities of galaxies as a function of gas fraction; Erb et al. 2006a) is sufficient to explain the presence of galaxies with large stellar masses and little star formation by z 2 without invoking AGN…”
• HOW DO DISKS SURVIVE MERGERS? (2008, background): “…massloading factors of winds are well below the predicted threshold where we see this behavior (see e.g. Veilleux et al. 2005; Martin 1999, 2006; Erb et al. 2006a; Sato et al. 2008), and moreover the ubiquity of starbursts and recent starburst remnants in observed gas-rich major mergers (e.g.…”