J/ApJ/765/140 Stacked spectra of SDSS star forming galaxies (Andrews+, 2013)
The mass-metallicity relation with the direct method on stacked spectra of
SDSS galaxies.
Andrews B.H., Martini P.
<Astrophys. J., 765, 140 (2013)>
=2013ApJ...765..140A 2013ApJ...765..140A
ADC_Keywords: Abundances ; Galaxies, spectra ; Interstellar medium
Keywords: galaxies: abundances; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: general;
galaxies: ISM; galaxies: stellar content; ISM: abundances
Abstract:
The relation between galaxy stellar mass and gas-phase metallicity is
a sensitive diagnostic of the main processes that drive galaxy
evolution, namely cosmological gas inflow, metal production in stars,
and gas outflow via galactic winds. We employed the direct method to
measure the metallicities of ∼200000 star-forming galaxies from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey that were stacked in bins of (1) stellar mass
and (2) both stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) to
significantly enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the weak
[OIII]λ4363 and [OII]λλ7320,7330 auroral lines
required to apply the direct method. These metallicity measurements
span three decades in stellar mass from log(M*/M☉)=7.4-10.5,
which allows the direct method mass-metallicity relation to
simultaneously capture the high-mass turnover and extend a full decade
lower in mass than previous studies that employed more uncertain
strong line methods. The direct method mass-metallicity relation rises
steeply at low mass (O/H∝M*1/2) until it turns over at
log(M*/M☉)=8.9 and asymptotes to 12+log(O/H)=8.8 at high mass.
The direct method mass-metallicity relation has a steeper slope, a
lower turnover mass, and a factor of two to three greater dependence
on SFR than strong line mass-metallicity relations. Furthermore, the
SFR-dependence appears monotonic with stellar mass, unlike strong line
mass-metallicity relations. We also measure the N/O abundance ratio,
an important tracer of star formation history, and find the clear
signature of primary and secondary nitrogen enrichment. N/O correlates
tightly with oxygen abundance, and even more so with stellar mass.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 255 273 Line fluxes
table3.dat 90 273 Electron temperatures, metallicity, and
N/O abundance
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See also:
II/294 : The SDSS Photometric Catalog, Release 7 (Adelman-McCarthy+, 2009)
III/232 : STELIB: A library of stellar spectra at R 2000 (Le Borgne+, 2003)
J/MNRAS/424/2316 : Abundances in HII regions (Pilyugin+, 2012)
J/ApJ/752/148 : κ-distributed electrons & OIII line (Nicholls+, 2012)
J/A+A/533/A25 : VLT/X-shooter observations of PHL293B (Izotov+ 2011)
J/A+A/529/A149 : HII regions in low-metallicity galaxies (Guseva+, 2011)
J/MNRAS/404/1639 : MILES base models + new line index system (Vazdekis+, 2010)
J/MNRAS/403/896 : Line intensities of SDSS HII regions (Pilyugin+, 2010)
J/ApJS/190/233 : Spectro. and abundances of SINGS galaxies (Moustakas+, 2010)
J/ApJ/700/1299 : Gas-phase element depletions in the ISM (Jenkins, 2009)
J/ApJ/700/654 : Keck spectro. of extragalactic HII regions (Esteban+ 2009)
J/ApJ/695/580 : Oxygen abundance in M83 (Bresolin+, 2009)
J/ApJ/695/259 : Massive metal-poor galaxies from SDSS (Peeples+, 2009)
J/ApJ/668/853 : UltraStrong Emission Line galaxies spectro. (Kakazu+, 2007)
J/MNRAS/374/664 : Stellar atmospheric param. in MILES library (Cenarro+, 2007)
J/A+A/462/535 : Low-metallicity HII regions and galaxies (Yin+, 2007)
J/MNRAS/371/703 : MILES library of empirical spectra (Sanchez-Blazquez+, 2006)
J/A+A/448/955 : Abundances of emission galaxies in SDSS-DR3 (Izotov+, 2006)
J/A+A/441/981 : HII regions in 5 spiral galaxies (Bresolin+, 2005)
J/PASP/117/227 : Properties of 101 galaxies from the NFGS (Kewley+, 2005)
J/ApJ/617/240 : Oxygen abundances in the GOODS-N field (Kobulnicky+, 2004)
J/ApJ/602/200 : Blue compact galaxies abundances (Izotov+, 2004)
J/A+A/421/539 : VLT spectroscopy of Tol 1214-277 + Tol 65 (Izotov+, 2004)
J/AJ/121/169 : Imaging and spectroscopy of Tol 1214-277 (Fricke+, 2001)
http://miles.iac.es/ : MILES home page
http://www.sdss.org/ : SDSS home page
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/SDSS/DR7/ : MPA-JHU DR7 release home page
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 F4.1 [Msun] logM*0 [7/11.4] Lower stellar mass limit of the stack
6- 9 F4.1 [Msun] logM*1 [7/11.5] Upper stellar mass limit of the stack
11- 14 F4.1 [Msun/yr] logSFR0 [-2/1.5]? Lower SFR limit of the stack
16- 19 F4.1 [Msun/yr] logSFR1 [-1.5/2]? Upper SFR limit of the stack
21- 25 I5 --- Ngal [1/14140] Number of galaxies in the stack
27- 32 F6.3 [Msun] logM* [7/11.5] Median stellar mass of the stack
34- 39 F6.3 [Msun/yr] logSFR [-1.8/1.9] Median SFR of the stack
41- 46 F6.2 --- F3727 ? [OII]3727 line flux (1)
48- 52 F5.2 --- e_F3727 ? Uncertainty on F3727
54- 58 F5.2 --- F3868 ? [NeIII]3868 line flux (1)
60- 63 F4.2 --- e_F3868 ? Uncertainty on F3868
65- 68 F4.2 --- F4069 ? [SII]4069 line flux (1)
70- 73 F4.2 --- e_F4069 ? Uncertainty on F4069
75- 80 F6.2 --- Hg ? Hγ line flux (1)
82- 86 F5.2 --- e_Hg ? Uncertainty on Hg
88- 92 F5.2 --- F4363 ? [OIII]4363 line flux (1)
94- 97 F4.2 --- e_F4363 ? Uncertainty on F4363
99-102 F4.2 --- F4686 ? HeII4686 line flux (1)
104-107 F4.2 --- e_F4686 ? Uncertainty on F4686
109-112 F4.2 --- F4740 ? [ArIV]4740 line flux (1)
114-117 F4.2 --- e_F4740 ? Uncertainty on F4740
119-124 F6.2 --- F4959 ? [OIII]4959 line flux (1)
126-129 F4.2 --- e_F4959 ? Uncertainty on F4959
131-136 F6.2 --- F5007 ? [OIII]5007 line flux (1)
138-142 F5.2 --- e_F5007 ? Uncertainty on F5007
144-147 F4.2 --- F5755 ? [NII]5755 line flux (1)
149-152 F4.2 --- e_F5755 ? Uncertainty on F5755
154-157 F4.2 --- F6312 ? [SIII]6312 line flux (1)
159-162 F4.2 --- e_F6312 ? Uncertainty on F6312
164-168 F5.2 --- F6548 ? [NII]6548 line flux (1)
170-173 F4.2 --- e_F6548 ? Uncertainty on F6548
175-180 F6.2 --- Ha [286]? Hα line flux (1)
182-186 F5.2 --- e_Ha ? Uncertainty on Ha
188-193 F6.2 --- F6583 ? [NII]6583 line flux (1)
195-198 F4.2 --- e_F6583 ? Uncertainty on F6583
200-205 F6.2 --- F6716 ? [SII]6716 line flux (1)
207-210 F4.2 --- e_F6716 ? Uncertainty on F6716
212-216 F5.2 --- F6731 ? [SII]6731 line flux (1)
218-221 F4.2 --- e_F6731 ? Uncertainty on F6731
223-226 F4.2 --- F7135 ? [ArIII]7135 line flux (1)
228-231 F4.2 --- e_F7135 ? Uncertainty on F7135
233-236 F4.2 --- F7320 ? [OII]7320 line flux (1)
238-241 F4.2 --- e_F7320 ? Uncertainty on F7320
243-246 F4.2 --- F7330 ? [OII]7330 line flux (1)
248-255 F8.5 --- e_F7330 ? Uncertainty on F7330
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Note (1): The line fluxes are in units of Hβ = 100.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 4 F4.1 [Msun] logM*0 [7/11.4] Lower stellar mass limit of the stack
6- 9 F4.1 [Msun] logM*1 [7/11.5] Upper stellar mass limit of the stack
11- 14 F4.1 [Msun/yr] logSFR0 [-2/1.5]? Lower SFR limit of the stack
16- 19 F4.1 [Msun/yr] logSFR1 [-1.5/2]? Upper SFR limit of the stack
21- 25 I5 --- Ngal [1/14140] Number of galaxies in the stack
27- 31 I5 K TeO3 ? [OIII] electron temperature
33- 36 I4 K e_TeO3 ? Uncertainty on TeO3
38- 42 I5 K TeO2 ? [OII] electron temperature
44- 47 I4 K e_TeO2 ? Uncertainty on TeO2
49- 53 I5 K TeN2 ? [NII] electron temperature
55- 58 I4 K e_TeN2 ? Uncertainty on TeN2
60- 64 I5 K TeS2 ? [SII] electron temperature
66- 69 I4 K e_TeS2 ? Uncertainty on TeS2
71- 74 F4.2 [-] logO/H [7.7/9.1]? Oxygen abundance; 12+log(O/H)
76- 79 F4.2 [-] e_logO/H ? Uncertainty on logO/H
81- 85 F5.2 [-] logN/O [-1.6/-0.7]? Nitrogen to Oxygen relative
abundance
87- 90 F4.2 [-] e_logN/O ? Uncertainty on logN/O
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 04-Nov-2014