LSD: Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics – I. Mass, metallicity and gas at z∼ 3.1

By F. Mannucci, G. Cresci, R. Maiolino, A. Marconi, G. Pastorini, L. Pozzetti, A. Gnerucci, G. Risaliti, R. Schneider, M. Lehnert and 1 more. 2009

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We present the first results of a project, Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics (LSD), aimed at obtaining spatially resolved, near-infrared (IR) spectroscopy of a complete sample of Lyman-break galaxies at z ∼ 3. Deep observations with adaptive optics resulted in the detection of the main optical lines, such as [O II] λ3727, Hβ and [O III] λ5007, which are used to study sizes, star formation rates (SFRs), morphologies, gas-phase metallicities, gas fractions and effective yields. Optical, near-IR and Spitzer/Infrared Array Camera photometry are used to measure stellar mass. We obtain that morphologies are usually complex, with the presence of several peaks of emissions and companions that are not detected in broad-band images. Typical metallicities are 10–50 per cent solar, with a strong evolution of the mass– metallicity relation from lower redshifts. Stellar masses, gas fraction and evolutionary stages vary significantly among the galaxies, with less massive galaxies showing larger fractions of gas. In contrast with observations in the local universe, effective yields decrease with stellar mass and reach solar values at the low-mass end of the sample. This effect can be reproduced by gas infall with rates of the order of the SFRs. Outflows are present but are not needed to explain the mass–metallicity relation. We conclude that a large fraction of these galaxies is actively creating stars after major episodes of gas infall or merging.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b93dae66dda1a5e4096baa7de497af5ad53e699a

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Citations in the corpus

• The progenitors of compact-object binaries: impact of metallicity, common envelope and natal kicks (2018, background): “Our knowledge of the stellar metallicity evolution in the Universe is quite more uncertain than our knowledge of the SFR density evolution (see e.g. Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Madau & Dickinson 2014 and references therein).”
• THE RELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND STELLAR MASS FOR GALAXIES AT 3.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 6.5 IN CANDELS (2014, result): “In contrast, other studies find no correlation or high scatter in the SFR–stellar mass relation (Shapley et al. 2005; Reddy et al. 2006; Mannucci et al. 2009; Lee et al. 2012; Wyithe et al. 2013), implying bursty star-formation.”
• The cosmic merger rate of neutron stars and black holes (2018, background): “(Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009) is of the order of 20 per cent.”
• GALAXY STRUCTURE AND MODE OF STAR FORMATION IN THE SFR–MASS PLANE FROM z ∼ 2.5 TO z ∼ 0.1 (2011, background): “Rather than assuming an evolution of the massmetallicity relation with redshift Z(M, z) (e.g., Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Buschkamp et al. in prep), we parametrize the metallicity as a non-evolving function of position in the SFRMass diagram: Z(SFR,M).”
• THE MOSDEF SURVEY: MEASUREMENTS OF BALMER DECREMENTS AND THE DUST ATTENUATION CURVE AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 1.4–2.6 (2015, background): “Moderate-resolution near-IR spectroscopy exists for both UV-selected star-forming galaxies (Erb et al. 2006b; Mannucci et al. 2009) and near-IR-selected samples of massive (M ≥ 1011M ) galaxies (Kriek et al. 2008), yet these samples are quite small and typically do not cover both the Hα and Hβ…”
• SDSS-IV MaNGA : the impact of diffuse ionized gas on emission-line ratios, interpretation of diagnostic diagrams and gas metallicity measurements (2016, background): “…& van den Bergh, 1968; Lequeux et al. 1979; Garnett 2002; Tremonti et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2006) and at high redshift (Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009), and the massmetallicity-SFR fundamental plane (Mannucci et al. 2010; Yates et al. 2012; Andrews & Martini 2013).”
• The mass–metallicity and the fundamental metallicity relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies (2019, background): “The MZR has been observed to hold also at redshifts out to 3 and beyond, nonetheless showing clear signs of evolution (Erb et al. 2006a; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Zahid et al. 2011, 2014a; Yabe et al. 2015; Ly et al. 2016; Sanders et al. 2018).”
• Rest-frame ultraviolet-to-optical spectral characteristics of extremely metal-poor and metal-free galaxies (2011, methodology): “At z ∼ 2–3, Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) selected by the so-called drop-out technique have Z ∼ 0.002–0.01 (= 1/10–1/2 Z⊙) (e.g., Pettini et al. 2001; Erb et al. 2006; Mannucci et al. 2009; Erb et al. 2010).”
• VERY STRONG EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES IN THE WFC3 INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC PARALLEL SURVEY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES, (2011, background): “The low metallicity and low mass of this object are consistent with the well known massmetallicity relation (Tremonti et al. 2004; Savaglio et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006a; Mannucci et al. 2009).”
• Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients, and gas fractions at z ~ 3.4 (2013, methodology): “∗ LSD galaxies, all values have been taken from Mannucci et al. (2009).”
• The origin and evolution of the galaxy mass–metallicity relation (2015, methodology): “We show the observed MZR at z ∼ 0 (Tremonti et al. 2004), z ∼ 0.8 (Zahid et al. 2011), z∼ 2.2 (Steidel et al. 2014; Sanders et al. 2014; Erb et al. 2006), and z ∼ 3.1 (Mannucci et al. 2009).”
• MERGERS AND BULGE FORMATION IN ΛCDM: WHICH MERGERS MATTER? (2009, background): “However other observations suggest that it does indeed hold (Bouché et al. 2007), and other indirect estimates yield similar results (Cresci et al. 2009; Mannucci et al. 2009).”
• A fundamental relation between the metallicity, gas content, and stellar mass of local galaxies (2013, background): “…relation) in particular being extensively studied in recent years, both locally (e.g. Lequeux et al. 1979; Tremonti et al. 2004) E-mail: matthew.bothwell@gmail.com and at higher redshifts (e.g. Savaglio et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Cresci et al. 2012).”
• The metallicity of the long GRB hosts and the fundamental metallicity relation of low-mass galaxies (2010, background): “At even higher redshifts, galaxies are found to evolve off the FMR (Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009), and this effect is under test with a larger number of observations (Troncoso et al., in prep.).”
• THE MOSFIRE DEEP EVOLUTION FIELD (MOSDEF) SURVEY: REST-FRAME OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY FOR ∼1500 H-SELECTED GALAXIES AT 1.37 ≤ z ≤ 3.8 ?> (2014, background): “…(Tremonti et al. 2004; Moustakas et al. 2011), observations of this trend at higher redshifts have until recently been based either on small and/or biased samples of individual objects (Mannucci et al. 2009) or on composite spectra that mask the variation among individual objects (Erb et al. 2006).”
• 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).”
• Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: discovery of a class of compact extremely star-forming galaxies (2009, background): “Additionally they have high star formation rates of a few to tens of solar masses per year (Barmby et al. 2004; Lehmer et al. 2005; Coppin et al. 2007; Carilli et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009; Pentericci et al. 2009), again similar to what we measure for the Peas.”
• THE MASS–METALLICITY AND LUMINOSITY–METALLICITY RELATIONS FROM DEEP2 AT z ∼ 0.8 (2010, background): “To date, the MZ relation has been extended beyond z∼3 (Shapley et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Pérez-Montero et al. 2009; Mannucci et al. 2009).”