The mass-metallicity relation at cosmic noon in overdense environments: first results from the MAMMOTH-Grism HST slitless spectroscopic survey

Abstract

The MAMMOTH-Grism slitless spectroscopic survey is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) cycle-28 medium program, which is obtaining 45 orbits of WFC3/IR grism spectroscopy in the density peak regions of three massive galaxy protoclusters at $z=2-3$ discovered using the MAMMOTH technique. We introduce this survey by presenting the first measurement of the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) at high redshift in overdense environments via grism spectroscopy. From the completed MAMMOTH-Grism observations in the field of the BOSS1244 protocluster at $z=2.24\pm 0.02$, We secure a sample of 36 protocluster member galaxies at $z\sim 2.24$, showing strong nebular emission lines ([O III], H$\beta$ and [O II]) in their G141 spectra. Using the multi-wavelength broad-band deep imaging from HST and ground-based telescopes, we measure their stellar masses in the range of $[10^9,10^{10.4}]M_{\odot }$, instantaneous star formation rates (SFR) from 10 to 240$M_{\odot }y{r}^{-1}$, and global gas-phase metallicities [$\frac{1}{3}$,1] of solar. Compared with similarly selected field galaxy sample at the same redshift, our galaxies show on average increased SFRs by $\sim$0.06dex and $\sim$0.18dex at $\sim$10${}^{10.1}{M}_{\odot }$ and $\sim$10${}^{9.8}{M}_{\odot }$, respectively. Using the stacked spectra of our sample galaxies, we derive the MZR in the BOSS1244 protocluster core as $12+\log (O/H)=(0.136\pm 0.018)\times \log (M_{\ast }/M_{\odot })+(7.082\pm 0.175)$, showing significantly shallower slope than that in the field. This shallow MZR slope is likely caused by the combined effects of efficient recycling of feedback-driven winds and cold-mode gas accretion in protocluster environments. The former effect helps low-mass galaxies residing in overdensities retain their metal production, whereas the latter effect dilutes the metal content of high-mass galaxies, making them more metal poor than their coeval field counterparts.

15 pages, 5 figures, and 4 tables, accepted to ApJ

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