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A fundamental metallicity relation for galaxies at z = 0.84-1.47 from HiZELS

Stott, J.P.; Sobral, D.; Bower, R.; Smail, I.; Best, P.N.; Matsuda, Y.; Hayashi, M.; Geach, J.E.; Kodama, T.

A fundamental metallicity relation for galaxies at z = 0.84-1.47 from HiZELS Thumbnail


Authors

J.P. Stott

D. Sobral

R. Bower

Profile image of Ian Smail

Ian Smail ian.smail@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

P.N. Best

Y. Matsuda

M. Hayashi

J.E. Geach

T. Kodama



Abstract

We obtained Subaru FMOS observations of Hα emitting galaxies selected from the HiZELS, to investigate the relationship between stellar mass, metallicity and star formation rate (SFR) at z = 0.84–1.47, for comparison with the fundamental metallicity relation seen at low redshift. Our findings demonstrate, for the first time with a homogeneously selected sample, that a relationship exists for typical star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1–1.5 and that it is surprisingly similar to that seen locally. Therefore, star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 1–1.5 are no less metal abundant than galaxies of similar mass and SFR at z ∼ 0.1, contrary to claims from some earlier studies. We conclude that the bulk of the metal enrichment for this star-forming galaxy population takes place in the 4 Gyr before z ∼ 1.5. We fit a new mass–metallicity–SFR plane to our data which is consistent with other high-redshift studies. However, there is some evidence that the mass–metallicity component of this high-redshift plane is flattened, at all SFR, compared with z ∼ 0.1, suggesting that processes such as star formation-driven winds, thought to remove enriched gas from low-mass haloes, are yet to have as large an impact at this early epoch. The negative slope of the SFR–metallicity relation from this new plane is consistent with the picture that the elevation in the SFR of typical galaxies at z ≳ 1 is fuelled by the inflow of metal-poor gas and not major merging.

Citation

Stott, J., Sobral, D., Bower, R., Smail, I., Best, P., Matsuda, Y., …Kodama, T. (2013). A fundamental metallicity relation for galaxies at z = 0.84-1.47 from HiZELS. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 436(2), 1130-1141. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt1641

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Dec 1, 2013
Deposit Date Apr 15, 2014
Publicly Available Date Jun 20, 2014
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 436
Issue 2
Pages 1130-1141
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt1641
Keywords Galaxies: abundances, Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: star formation.
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1435333

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.






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