Dust, gas, and metal content in star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.3$ revealed with ALMA and Near-IR spectroscopy

Abstract

We conducted sub-millimeter observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) of star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.3$, whose gas-phase metallicities have been previously measured. We investigate the dust and gas contents of the galaxies at $z\sim 3.3$ and study how galaxies are interacting with their circumgalactic/intergalactic medium at this epoch by probing their gas mass fractions and gas-phase metallicities. Single-band dust continuum emission tracing dust mass and the relation between the gas-phase metallicity and gas-to-dust mass ratio are used to estimate the gas masses. The estimated gas mass fractions and depletion timescales are $f_{\mathrm{gas}}=$ 0.20-0.75 and $t_{\mathrm{dep}}=$ 0.09-1.55 Gyr, respectively. Although the galaxies appear to tightly distribute around the star-forming main sequence at $z\sim 3.3$, both quantities show a wider spread at a fixed stellar mass than expected from the scaling relation, suggesting a large diversity of fundamental gas properties among star-forming galaxies apparently on the main sequence. Comparing gas mass fraction and gas-phase metallicity between the star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.3$ and at lower redshifts, star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.3$ appear to be more metal-poor than local galaxies with similar gas mass fractions. Using the gas regulator model to interpret this offset, we find that it can be explained by a higher mass-loading factor, suggesting that the mass-loading factor in outflows increases at earlier cosmic times.

19 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (50)

• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• A Highly Consistent Framework for the Evolution of the Star-Forming "Main Sequence" from z~0-6
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• zCOSMOS: A Large VLT/VIMOS redshift survey covering 0 < z < 3 in the COSMOS field
• UltraVISTA: a new ultra-deep near-infrared survey in COSMOS
• xCOLD GASS: the complete IRAM-30m legacy survey of molecular gas for galaxy evolution studies
• The Origin of the Galaxy Mass-Metallicity Relation and Implications for Galactic Outflows
• An ALMA survey of Sub-millimeter Galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: Physical properties derived from ultraviolet-to-radio modelling
• The Chandra COSMOS Survey, I: Overview and Point Source Catalog
• The Mass-Metallicity and the Fundamental Metallicity Relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies
• The Universal Relation of Galactic Chemical Evolution: The Origin of the Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Evolution of the dust emission of massive galaxies up to z=4 and constraints on their dominant mode of star formation
• New fully empirical calibrations of strong-line metallicity indicators in star forming galaxies
• CO excitation of normal star forming galaxies out to z=1.5 as regulated by the properties of their interstellar medium
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 CLS UDS field: Physical properties of 707 Sub-millimetre Galaxies
• The Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer (ZEBRA) and its first application: COSMOS
• The impact of interactions, bars, bulges, and AGN on star formation efficiency in local massive galaxies
• ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Survey Description
• A Model for Star Formation, Gas Flows and Chemical Evolution in Galaxies at High Redshifts
• Automated Mining of the ALMA Archive in the COSMOS Field (A3COSMOS): II. Cold Molecular Gas Evolution out to Redshift 6
• The Oxygen Abundances of Luminous and Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• Stochastic modelling of star-formation histories II: star-formation variability from molecular clouds and gas inflow
• PHIBSS2: survey design and z=0.5-0.8 results. Molecular gas reservoirs during the winding-down of star formation
• Dust continuum emission as a tracer of gas mass in galaxies
• Evolution of the H$\beta$+[OIII] and [OII] luminosity functions and the [OII] star-formation history of the Universe up to $z$ ~ 5 from HiZELS
• ALLSMOG: an APEX Low-redshift Legacy Survey for MOlecular Gas. I - molecular gas scaling relations, and the effect of the CO/H2 conversion factor
• Gas Fraction and Depletion Time of Massive Star Forming Galaxies at z~3.2: No Change in Global Star Formation Process out to z>3
• An ALMA/NOEMA survey of the molecular gas properties of high-redshift star-forming galaxies
• A spatially resolved study of cold dust, molecular gas, HII regions, and stars in the $z=2.12$ submillimeter galaxy ALESS67.1
• MAGPHYS+photo-z: Constraining the Physical Properties of Galaxies with Unknown Redshifts
• VLA-ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (VLASPECS): Total Cold Gas Masses and CO Line Ratios for z=2-3 "Main Sequence" Galaxies
• Dust and Gas in Star Forming Galaxies at z~3 - Extending Galaxy Uniformity to 11.5 Billion Years
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: The nature of the faintest dusty star-forming galaxies
• The final data release of ALLSMOG: a survey of CO in typical local low-M* star-forming galaxies
• The role of atomic hydrogen in regulating the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation
• The gas, metal and dust evolution in low-metallicity local and high-redshift galaxies
• Observational and theoretical constraints on the formation and early evolution of the first dust grains in galaxies at 5 < z < 10
• The Largest X-ray Selected Sample of z>3 AGNs: C-COSMOS & ChaMP
• Galactic outflow and diffuse gas properties at z>=1 using different baryonic feedback models
• Disentangling the physical parameters of gaseous nebulae and galaxies
• The First Robust Constraints on the Relationship Between Dust-to-Gas Ratio and Metallicity in Luminous Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshift
• The effect of gas accretion on the radial gas metallicity profile of simulated galaxies
• ALMA reveals the molecular gas properties of 5 star-forming galaxies across the main sequence at 3 < z < 3.5
• The interstellar medium in [OIII]-selected star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.2$
• Evolution of the Gas Mass Fraction of Progenitors to Today's Massive Galaxies: ALMA Observations in the CANDELS GOODS-S Field
• The gas inflow and outflow rate in star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 1.4$
• New empirical constraints on the cosmological evolution of gas and stars in galaxies
• Constraint on the inflow/outflow rates in star-forming galaxies at z~1.4 from molecular gas observations

Cited by in corpus (9)

• JWST NIRCam+NIRSpec: Interstellar medium and stellar populations of young galaxies with rising star formation and evolving gas reservoirs
• Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshift are Expected to be Obscured by their Massive Host Galaxies' Inter Stellar Medium
• Signs of environmental effects on star-forming galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster at z=2.16
• CO Emission, Molecular Gas, and Metallicity in Main-Sequence Star-Forming Galaxies at $z\sim 2.3$
• Dust Properties of 870 Micron Selected Galaxies in the GOODS-S
• Gravitational wave backgrounds from coalescing black hole binaries at cosmic dawn: an upper bound
• ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey: average dust, gas, and star formation properties of cluster and field galaxies from stacking analysis
• Kiloparsec-scale imaging of the CO(1-0)-traced cold molecular gas reservoir in a z~3.4 submillimeter galaxy
• Low star-formation activity and low gas content of quiescent galaxies at $z=$ 3.5-4.0 constrained with ALMA