First Census of Gas-phase Metallicity Gradients of Star-forming Galaxies in Overdense Environments at Cosmic Noon

Abstract

We report the first spatially resolved measurements of gas-phase metallicity radial gradients in star-forming galaxies in overdense environments at $z\gtrsim 2$. The spectroscopic data are acquired by the \mg\ survey, a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) cycle-28 medium program. This program is obtaining 45 orbits of WFC3/IR grism spectroscopy in the density peak regions of three massive galaxy protoclusters (BOSS 1244, BOSS 1542 and BOSS 1441) at $z=2-3$. Our sample in the BOSS 1244 field consists of 20 galaxies with stellar-mass ranging from $10^{9.0}$ to $10^{10.3}$ \Msun\ , star formation rate (SFR) from 10 to 240 \Msun\,yr${}^{-1}$, and global gas-phase metallicity (\oh) from 8.2 to 8.6. At $1\sigma$ confidence level, 2/20 galaxies in our sample show positive (inverted) gradients -- the relative abundance of oxygen increasing with galactocentric radius, opposite the usual trend. Furthermore, 1/20 shows negative gradients and 17/20 are consistent with flat gradients. This high fraction of flat/inverted gradients is uncommon in simulations and previous observations conducted in blank fields at similar redshifts. To understand this, we investigate the correlations among various observed properties of our sample galaxies. We find an anticorrelation between metallicity gradient and global metallicity of our galaxies residing in extreme overdensities, and a marked deficiency of metallicity in our massive galaxies as compared to their coeval field counterparts. We conclude that the cold-mode gas accretion plays an active role in shaping the chemical evolution of galaxies in the protocluster environments, diluting their central chemical abundance, and flattening/inverting their metallicity gradients.

arXiv comment13 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJL

References in corpus (43)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• Detailed Structural Decomposition of Galaxy Images
• How Do Galaxies Get Their Gas?
• Galaxy Bimodality due to Cold Flows and Shock Heating
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
• Adaptive spatial binning of integral-field spectroscopic data using Voronoi tessellations
• Galaxies in a simulated $\Lambda$CDM Universe I: cold mode and hot cores
• Gusty, gaseous flows of FIRE: galactic winds in cosmological simulations with explicit stellar feedback
• The Origin of the Galaxy Mass-Metallicity Relation and Implications for Galactic Outflows
• The MOSDEF Survey: The Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity Relation from $z=0$ to $z\sim 3.3$
• Gas accretion as the origin of chemical abundance gradients in distant galaxies
• Galaxy Mergers and the Mass-Metallicity Relation: Evidence for Nuclear Metal Dilution and Flattened Gradients from Numerical Simulations
• The SINS/zC-SINF survey of z~2 galaxy kinematics: SINFONI adaptive optics-assisted data and kiloparsec-scale emission line properties
• Metallicity gradients in local field star-forming galaxies: Insights on inflows, outflows, and the coevolution of gas, stars and metals
• AGN Emission Line Diagnostics and the Mass-Metallicity Relation up to Redshift z~2: the Impact of Selection Effects and Evolution
• Resolved Spectroscopy of Gravitationally-Lensed Galaxies: Recovering Coherent Velocity Fields in Sub-Luminous z~2-3 Galaxies
• The Origin and Evolution of Metallicity Gradients: Probing the Mode of Mass Assembly at z=2
• The MOSDEF Survey: Optical AGN Diagnostics at z~2.3
• "Direct" Gas-Phase Metallicity in Local Analogs of High-Redshift Galaxies: Empirical Metallicity Calibrations for High-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies
• From haloes to Galaxies - I. The dynamics of the gas regulator model and the implied cosmic sSFR history
• The evolution of metallicity and metallicity gradients from z=2.7-0.6 with KMOS3D
• MApping the Most Massive Overdensities (MAMMOTH) II -- Discovery of an Extremely Massive Overdensity BOSS1441 at $z=2.32$
• A relationship between specific star formation rate and metallicity gradient within z=1 galaxies from KMOS-HiZELS
• The KLEVER Survey: Spatially resolved metallicity maps and gradients in a sample of 1.2 < z < 2.5 lensed galaxies
• Gas-phase metallicity gradients of TNG50 star-forming galaxies
• A Keck Survey of Gravitationally-Lensed Star-Forming Galaxies: High Spatial Resolution Studies of Kinematics and Metallicity Gradients
• Why do high-redshift galaxies show diverse gas-phase metallicity gradients?
• The Chemical Evolution Carousel of Spiral Galaxies: Azimuthal Variations of Oxygen Abundance in NGC1365
• MApping the Most Massive Overdensities Through Hydrogen (MAMMOTH) I: Methodology
• CLEAR: The Gas-Phase Metallicity Gradients of Star-Forming Galaxies at 0.6 < z < 2.6
• Discovery of Strongly Inverted Metallicity Gradients in Dwarf Galaxies at $z$$\sim$2
• On the Mass-Metallicity-Star Formation Rate Relation for Galaxies at $z\sim 2$
• First gas-phase metallicity gradients of $0.1\lesssim z\lesssim 0.8$ galaxies with MUSE
• The Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) X. Sub-kpc resolution gas-phase metallicity maps at cosmic noon behind the Hubble Frontier Fields cluster MACS1149.6+2223
• An extremely young massive clump forming by gravitational collapse in a primordial galaxy
• The oxygen abundance gradients in the gas discs of galaxies in the EAGLE simulation
• Evidence for HI replenishment in massive galaxies through gas accretion from the cosmic web
• A Census of Sub-kiloparsec Resolution Metallicity Gradients in Star-forming Galaxies at Cosmic Noon from HST Slitless Spectroscopy
• The mass-metallicity relation at z~1-2 and its dependence on star formation rate
• The mass-metallicity relation at cosmic noon in overdense environments: first results from the MAMMOTH-Grism HST slitless spectroscopic survey
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of two Extremely Massive Protoclusters BOSS1244 and BOSS1542 at $z=2.24$

Cited by in corpus (15)

• The GLASS James Webb Space Telescope Early Release Science Program. I. Survey Design and Release Plans
• Early results from GLASS-JWST. IV: Spatially resolved metallicity in a low-mass $z\sim 3$ galaxy with NIRISS
• Gas-phase metallicity gradients in galaxies at $z\sim 6-8$
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation of Dwarf Galaxies at Cosmic Noon from JWST Observations
• The Identification of a Dusty Multiarm Spiral Galaxy at $z=3.06$ with JWST and ALMA
• CLEAR: Survey Overview, Data Analysis and Products
• A spatially resolved analysis of star-formation burstiness by comparing UV and H$\alpha$ in galaxies at z$\sim$1 with UVCANDELS
• MSA-3D: Metallicity Gradients in Galaxies at $z\sim 1$ with JWST/NIRSpec Slit-stepping Spectroscopy
• Environmental dependence of the mass-metallicity relation in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• Direct-method metallicity gradients derived from spectral stacking with SDSS-IV MaNGA
• Spatially resolved emission lines in galaxies at $4\le z<10$ from the JADES survey: evidence for enhanced central star formation
• Evolution of the radial ISM metallicity gradient in the Milky Way disk since redshift $\approx 3$
• Insights on Metal Enrichment and Environmental Effect at $z\approx 5-7$ with JWST ASPIRE/EIGER and Chemical Evolution Model
• MAMMOTH-MOSFIRE: Environmental Effects on Galaxy Interstellar Medium at $z\sim 2$
• The ALPINE-CRISTAL-JWST Survey: Gas-phase abundance gradients of main sequence star-forming galaxies and their kinematics at $4<z<6$