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The mass-metallicity relation at z 1.4 revealed with Subaru/FMOS

  • Kiyoto Yabe*
  • , Kouji Ohta
  • , Fumihide Iwamuro
  • , Masayuki Akiyama
  • , Naoyuki Tamura
  • , Suraphong Yuma
  • , Masahiko Kimura
  • , Naruhisa Takato
  • , Yuki Moritani
  • , Masanao Sumiyoshi
  • , Toshinori Maihara
  • , John Silverman
  • , Gavin Dalton
  • , Ian Lewis
  • , David Bonfield
  • , Hanshin Lee
  • , Emma Curtis-Lake
  • , Edward Macaulay
  • , Fraser Clarke
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

We present a stellar mass-metallicity relation at z ~ 1.4 with an unprecedentedly large sample of ~340 star-forming galaxies obtained with FibreMulti-Object Spectrograph (FMOS) on the Subaru Telescope. We observed K-band selected galaxies at 1.2 ≤ zph ≤ 1.6 in the Subaru XMM-Newton Deep Survey/Ultra Deep Survey fields with M*> 109.5M, and expected F(Hα) > 5 × 10-17 erg s-1 cm-2. Among the observed ~1200 targets, 343 objects show significant Ha emission lines. The gas-phase metallicity is obtained from [N II] λ6584/Hα line ratio, after excluding possible active galactic nuclei. Due to the faintness of the [N II] λ6584 lines, we apply the stacking analysis and derive the mass-metallicity relation at z ~ 1.4. Our results are compared to past results at different redshifts in the literature. The mass-metallicity relation at z ~ 1.4 is located between those at z ~ 0.8 and z ~ 2.2; it is found that the metallicity increases with decreasing redshift from z ~ 3 to z ~ 0 at fixed stellar mass. Thanks to the large size of the sample, we can study the dependence of the mass-metallicity relation on various galaxy physical properties. The average metallicity from the stacked spectra is close to the local Fundamental Metallicity Relation (FMR) in the higher metallicity part but >0.1 dex higher in metallicity than the FMR in the lower metallicity part.We find that galaxies with larger E(B -V), B -R and R -H colours tend to show higher metallicity by ~0.05 dex at fixed stellar mass. We also find relatively clearer size dependence that objects with smaller half-light radius tend to show higher metallicity by ~0.1 dex at fixed stellar mass, especially in the low-mass part.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3647-3663
Number of pages17
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume437
Issue number4
Early online date10 Dec 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2014

Keywords

  • Abundances-galaxies
  • Evolution-galaxies
  • Galaxies
  • High-redshift
  • RCUK
  • STFC

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