The Evolution of Gas-Phase Metallicity and Resolved Abundances in Star-forming Galaxies at $z\approx 0.6-1.8$

Abstract

We present an analysis of the chemical abundance properties of $\approx$650 star-forming galaxies at $z\approx 0.6-1.8$. Using integral-field observations from the $K$-band Multi-Object Spectrograph (KMOS), we quantify the [NII]/H$\alpha$ emission-line ratio, a proxy for the gas-phase Oxygen abundance within the interstellar medium. We define the stellar mass-metallicity relation at $z\approx 0.6-1.0$ and $z\approx 1.2-1.8$ and analyse the correlation between the scatter in the relation and fundamental galaxy properties (e.g. H$\alpha$ star-formation rate, H$\alpha$ specific star-formation rate, rotation dominance, stellar continuum half-light radius and Hubble-type morphology). We find that for a given stellar mass, more highly star-forming, larger and irregular galaxies have lower gas-phase metallicities, which may be attributable to their lower surface mass densities and the higher gas fractions of irregular systems. We measure the radial dependence of gas-phase metallicity in the galaxies, establishing a median, beam smearing-corrected, metallicity gradient of $\Delta Z/\Delta R=0.002\pm 0.004$ dex kpc${}^{-1}$, indicating on average there is no significant dependence on radius. The metallicity gradient of a galaxy is independent of its rest-frame optical morphology, whilst correlating with its stellar mass and specific star-formation rate, in agreement with an inside-out model of galaxy evolution, as well as its rotation dominance. We quantify the evolution of metallicity gradients, comparing the distribution of $\Delta Z/\Delta R$ in our sample with numerical simulations and observations at $z\approx 0-3$. Galaxies in our sample exhibit flatter metallicity gradients than local star-forming galaxies, in agreement with numerical models in which stellar feedback plays a crucial role redistributing metals.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS. Comments welcome. 20 pages, 12 figures. Revised version with updated introduction and FMR evolution following comments

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