Chemical abundance scaling relations for multiple elements in z~2-3 star-forming galaxies

Abstract

The chemical abundance patterns of gas and stars in galaxies are powerful probes of galaxies' star formation histories and the astrophysics of galaxy assembly but are challenging to measure with confidence in distant galaxies. In this paper, we report the first measurements of the correlation between stellar mass and multiple tracers of chemical enrichment (including O, N, and Fe) in individual z~2-3 galaxies, using a sample of 195 star-forming galaxies from the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS). The galaxies' chemical abundances are inferred using photoionization models capable of reconciling high-redshift galaxies' observed extreme rest-UV and rest-optical spectroscopic properties. We find that the stellar mass-O/H relation for our sample is relatively shallow, with moderately large scatter, and is offset ~0.35 dex higher than the corresponding stellar mass-Fe/H relation. The two relations have very similar slopes, indicating a high level of alpha-enhancement -- with O/Fe approximately 2.2 times higher than solar O/Fe -- across two decades in stellar mass. The stellar mass-N/H relation has the steepest slope and largest intrinsic scatter, which likely results from the fact that many z~2 galaxies are observed near or past the transition from "primary" to "secondary" N production and may reflect uncertainties in the astrophysical origin of N. Together, these results suggest that z~2 galaxies are old enough to have seen substantial enrichment from intermediate mass stars, but are still young enough that Type Ia supernovae have not had time to contribute significantly to their enrichment.

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (34)

• The James Webb Space Telescope
• Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
• The Circumgalactic Medium
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• Strong Nebular Line Ratios in the Spectra of z~2-3 Star-forming Galaxies: First Results from KBSS-MOSFIRE
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Star Formation, AGN Fraction, and the Luminosity/Mass-Metallicity Relation
• The Stellar, Gas and Dynamical Masses of Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2
• The MOSFIRE Deep Evolution Field (MOSDEF) Survey: Rest-Frame Optical Spectroscopy for ~1500 H-Selected Galaxies at 1.37 < z < 3.8
• The MOSDEF Survey: The Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity Relation from $z=0$ to $z\sim 3.3$
• Nebular Emission Line Ratios in z~2-3 Star-Forming Galaxies with KBSS-MOSFIRE: Exploring the Impact of Ionization, Excitation, and Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Ratio
• The Origin and Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity Relationship for Galaxies: Results from Cosmological N-Body Simulations
• The Metallicity of Galaxy Disks: Infall versus Outflow
• The MOSDEF Survey: Mass, Metallicity, and Star-formation Rate at z~2.3
• Deriving model-based T${}_e$-consistent chemical abundances in ionised gaseous nebulae
• AGN Emission Line Diagnostics and the Mass-Metallicity Relation up to Redshift z~2: the Impact of Selection Effects and Evolution
• A Model for Star Formation, Gas Flows and Chemical Evolution in Galaxies at High Redshifts
• C, N, O Abundances in the Most Metal-Poor Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• IZI: Inferring the Gas Phase Metallicity (Z) and Ionization Parameter (q) of Ionized Nebulae using Bayesian Statistics
• Insights on the stellar mass-metallicity relation from the CALIFA survey
• A massive, quiescent, population II galaxy at a redshift of 2.1
• The VANDELS survey: the stellar metallicities of star-forming galaxies at 2.5 < z < 5.0
• Carbon and oxygen abundances from recombination lines in low-metallicity star-forming galaxies. Implications for chemical evolution
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Exploring the gas-phase Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Biases in metallicity measurements from global galaxy spectra: the effects of flux-weighting and diffuse ionized gas contamination
• The NIRVANDELS Survey: a robust detection of $\alpha$-enhancement in star-forming galaxies at $z\simeq 3.4$
• Separate ways: The Mass-Metallicity Relation does not strongly correlate with Star Formation Rate in SDSS-IV MaNGA galaxies
• The MOSDEF-LRIS Survey: The Connection Between Massive Stars and Ionized Gas in Individual Galaxies at $z\sim 2$
• The Nitrogen and Oxygen abundances in the neutral gas at high redshift
• First direct metallicity measurement of a lensed star-forming galaxy at z=1.7
• The Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) -- III. Physical properties and elemental abundances of Lyman limit systems at $z<1$
• Resolved Multi-element Stellar Chemical Abundances in the Brightest Quiescent Galaxy at z $\sim$ 2
• The MOSDEF Survey: Neon as a Probe of ISM Physical Conditions at High Redshift
• The Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) IV: The Complex Multiphase Circumgalactic Medium as Revealed by Partial Lyman Limit Systems
• Explaining the scatter in the galaxy mass-metallicity relation with gas flows

Cited by in corpus (25)

• JWST NIRCam+NIRSpec: Interstellar medium and stellar populations of young galaxies with rising star formation and evolving gas reservoirs
• Searching for Extremely Blue UV Continuum Slopes at $z=7-11$ in JWST/NIRCam Imaging: Implications for Stellar Metallicity and Ionizing Photon Escape in Early Galaxies
• X-Shooting ULLYSES: massive stars at low metallicity. I. Project Description
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation of Dwarf Galaxies at Cosmic Noon from JWST Observations
• A Preview of JWST Metallicity Studies at Cosmic Noon: The First Detection of Auroral [O II] Emission at High Redshift
• The Impact of Star-Formation-Rate Surface Density on the Electron Density and Ionization Parameter of High-Redshift Galaxies
• Direct Constraints on the Extremely Metal-Poor Massive Stars Underlying Nebular C IV Emission from Ultra-Deep HST/COS Ultraviolet Spectroscopy
• CLEAR: Survey Overview, Data Analysis and Products
• The mass-metallicity relation as a ruler for galaxy evolution: insights from the James Webb Space Telescope
• Theoretically Modelling Photoionized Regions with Fractal Geometry in Three Dimensions
• On the impact of spectral template uncertainties in synthetic stellar populations
• Discovery of a Dusty, Chemically Mature Companion to a z$\sim$4 Starburst Galaxy in JWST ERS Data
• Catalogue of model star clusters in the Milky Way and M31 galaxies
• First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) XIII: The Lyman-continuum emission of high-redshift galaxies
• Trading oxygen for iron I: the [O/Fe] -- specific star formation rate relation of galaxies
• The resolved chemical abundance properties within the interstellar medium of star-forming galaxies at $\text{z}\approx 1.5$
• Star Formation and Chemical Enrichment in Protoclusters
• pySTARBURST99: The Next Generation of STARBURST99
• The Direct-Method Oxygen Abundance of Typical Dwarf Galaxies at Cosmic High-Noon
• The JWST EXCELS Survey: gas-phase metallicity evolution at 2 < z < 8
• Probing cosmic chemical enrichment with next-generation gravitational-wave observatories
• pop-cosmos: Insights from generative modeling of a deep, infrared-selected galaxy population
• The nebular properties of star-forming galaxies at intermediate redshift from the Large Early Galaxy Astrophysics Census
• KBSS-InCLOSE I: Design and First Results from the Inner CGM of QSO Line Of Sight Emitting Galaxies at z~2-3
• CECILIA: Ultra-Deep Rest-Optical Spectra of Faint Galaxies at Cosmic Noon