The Mass‐Metallicity Relation at z ≳2
California Institute of Technology · Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian · +4 more institutions
Abstract
We use a sample of 87 rest-frame UV-selected star-forming galaxies with mean spectroscopic redshift z=2.26 to study the correlation between metallicity and stellar mass at high redshift. Using stellar masses determined from SED fitting to 0.3-8 micron photometry, we divide the sample into six bins in stellar mass, and construct six composite H-alpha+[NII] spectra from all of the objects in each bin. We estimate the mean oxygen abundance in each bin from the [NII]/H-alpha ratio, and find a monotonic increase in metallicity with increasing stellar mass, from 12+log(O/H) = 2.7e9 Msun to 12+log(O/H) = 8.6 for galaxies with = 1e11 Msun. We use the empirical relation between star formation rate density and gas…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 43.45
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 121
Authors
6- DKDawn K. ErbCorresponding
California Institute of Technology, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian
- AEAlice E. Shapley
Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley
- MPMax Pettini
University of Cambridge
- CCCharles C. Steidel
California Institute of Technology
- NANaveen A. Reddy
California Institute of Technology
Topics & keywords
- Metallicity
- Astrophysics
- Physics
- Stellar mass
- Galaxy
- Redshift
- Star formation
- Photometry (optics)