1. The mass-metallicity relation at z~1.4 revealed with Subaru/FMOS
- Author
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Yabe, Kiyoto, Ohta, Kouji, Iwamuro, Fumihide, Akiyama, Masayuki, Tamura, Naoyuki, Yuma, Suraphong, Kimura, Masahiko, Takato, Naruhisa, Moritani, Yuki, Sumiyoshi, Masanao, Maihara, Toshinori, Silverman, John, Dalton, Gavin, Lewis, Ian, Bonfield, David, Lee, Hanshin, Curtis-Lake, Emma, Macaulay, Edward, and Clarke, Fraser
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
We present a stellar mass-metallicity relation at z~1.4 with an unprecedentedly large sample of ~340 star-forming galaxies obtained with FMOS on the Subaru Telescope. We observed K-band selected galaxies at 1.2 < z_{ph} < 1.6 in the SXDS/UDS fields with M_{*} > 10^{9.5} M_{\sun}, and expected F(H\alpha) > 5 \times 10^{-17} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2}. Among the observed ~1200 targets, 343 objects show significant H\alpha emission lines. The gas-phase metallicity is obtained from [NII]\lambda 6584/H\alpha line ratio, after excluding possible active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Due to the faintness of the [NII]\lambda 6584 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 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., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, MNRAS accepted
- Published
- 2013
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