Evolution of oxygen and nitrogen abundances and nitrogen production mechanism in massive star-forming galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolution of oxygen and nitrogen abundances in over 55,000 star-forming galaxies, revealing galaxy downsizing effects, nitrogen production mechanisms, and the potential of N/O ratios as a stellar mass indicator for cosmology.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the redshift evolution of element abundances and proposes N/O ratio as a stellar mass indicator, highlighting the role of intermediate-mass stars and outflows in nitrogen production.

Findings

O and N abundances increase with galaxy mass and redshift.

Nitrogen production is mainly from intermediate-mass stars, with outflows affecting massive galaxies.

N/O ratio correlates linearly with stellar mass, suggesting its use as a cosmological standard candle.

Abstract

Utilizing the observational data of 55,318 star-forming galaxies (SFGs) selected from the catalog of MPA-JHU emission-line measurements for the SDSS DR8, we investigate the galaxy downsizing effect of their O and N enrichments, and the nitrogen production mechanism in them. We show the redshift evolution of O and N abundances and specific star formation rates for different galaxy mass ranges, demonstrating the galaxy downsizing effect caused by less massive progenitors of less massive galaxies. The O and N abundances do not remain constant for different galaxy mass ranges, and the enrichment (and hence star formation) decreases with increasing galaxy stellar mass. We find evidence of the O enrichment for galaxies with stellar masses $M_{*}>10^{11.0} $ (in units of $M_{\odot}$), i.e. $\Delta({\log}({\rm O/H})) \sim 0.10$ and $\Delta({\log}({\rm N/H})) \sim 0.28$ from redshift 0.023 to 0.30. Based on the evolutionary schematic model of N/O ratios in Coziol et al., who proposed the scheme that the production of nitrogen is the consequence of a sequence of bursts in SFGs, we conclude that the nitrogen production is dominated by the intermediate-mass stars, which dominate the secondary synthesis in SFGs. However, for galaxies with $M_{*}>10^{10.35} $ we find evidence of enhanced N/O abundance ratios, which are significantly above the secondary synthesis line. This suggests that outflows of massive stars, which deplete oxygen efficiently, are more important in massive galaxies. Finally we find an excellent linear relation between $M_{*}$ and log(N/O), indicating that the N/O abundance ratio is a good indicator of the stellar mass in a SFG and may be used as a standard candle for studying cosmology, if confirmed with further studies.