Ultra-deep Keck/MOSFIRE Spectroscopic Observations of z 2 Galaxies: Direct Oxygen Abundances and Nebular Excitation Properties
Abstract
Using deep near-infrared Keck/MOSFIRE observations, we analyze the rest-optical spectra of eight star-forming galaxies in the COSMOS and GOODS-N fields. We reach integration times of ~10 hr in the deepest bands, pushing the limits on current ground-based observational capabilities. The targets fall into two redshift bins, of five galaxies at z ~ 1.7 and three galaxies at z ~ 2.5, and were selected as likely to yield significant auroral-line detections. Even with long integration times, detection of the auroral lines remains challenging. We stack the spectra together into subsets based on redshift, improving the signal-to-noise ratio on the [O III]λ4364 auroral emission line and, in turn, enabling a direct measurement of the oxygen abundance for each stack. We compare these measurements to commonly employed strong-line ratios alongside measurements from the literature. We find that the stacks fall within the distribution of z > 1 literature measurements, but a larger sample size is needed to robustly constrain the relationships between strong-line ratios and oxygen abundance at high redshift. We additionally report detections of [O I]λ6302 for nine individual galaxies and composite spectra of 21 targets in the MOSFIRE pointings. We plot their line ratios on the [O III]λ5008/Hβ versus [O I]λ6302/Hα diagnostic diagram, comparing our targets to local galaxies and H II regions. We find that the [O I]/Hα ratios in our sample of galaxies are consistent with being produced in gas ionized by α-enhanced massive stars, as has been previously inferred for rapidly forming galaxies at early cosmic times.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 2023
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/acfedb
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2305.07781
- Bibcode:
- 2023ApJ...957...81C
- Keywords:
-
- Galaxies;
- Galaxy evolution;
- Emission line galaxies;
- Interstellar medium;
- High-redshift galaxies;
- 573;
- 594;
- 459;
- 847;
- 734;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ