The nebular properties of star-forming galaxies at intermediate redshift from the Large Early Galaxy Astrophysics Census

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the partial rest-optical (${\lambda }_{\mathrm{obs}}\approx 3600-5600$Å) spectra of $N=328$ star-forming galaxies at $0.6<z<1.0$ from the Large Early Galaxy Astrophysics Census (LEGA-C). We compare this sample with low-redshift ($z\sim 0$) galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), intermediate-redshift ($z\sim 1.6$) galaxies from the Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS)-COSMOS Survey, and high-redshift ($z\sim 2$) galaxies from the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS). At a lookback time of $6-8\mathrm{Gyr}$, galaxies with stellar masses $\log ({\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }/{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot })>10.25$ appear remarkably similar to $z\sim 0$ galaxies in terms of their nebular excitation, as measured using $[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]\lambda 5008/\mathrm{H}\beta$. There is some evidence that $0.6<z<1.0$ galaxies with lower ${\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ have higher $[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]\lambda 5008/\mathrm{H}\beta$ than $z\sim 0$ galaxies and are more similar to less evolved $z\sim 1.6$ and $z\sim 2$ galaxies, which are offset from the $z\sim 0$ locus at all ${\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$. We explore the impact selection effects, contributions from active galactic nuclei, and variations in physical conditions (ionization parameter and gas-phase oxygen abundance) have on the apparent distribution of $[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]\lambda 5008/\mathrm{H}\beta$ and find somewhat higher ionization and lower enrichment in $0.6<z<1.0$ galaxies with lower ${\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relative to $z\sim 0$ galaxies. We use new near-infrared spectroscopic observations of $N=53$ LEGA-C galaxies to investigate other probes of enrichment and excitation. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of obtaining complete rest-optical spectra of galaxies in order to disentangle these effects.

arXiv commentAccepted by ApJ; main text 20 pages, 12 figures and 5 tables

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