Measuring the Physical Conditions in High-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies: Insights from KBSS-MOSFIRE

TL;DR

This study uses photoionization models on rest-optical spectra of ~150 high-redshift star-forming galaxies to infer their gas chemistry and ionization conditions, revealing differences from local galaxies and providing new calibration methods.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent modeling approach for high-z galaxy spectra and offers new calibrations for metallicity diagnostics tailored to early universe conditions.

Findings

Most z~2-3 galaxies are moderately oxygen-rich.

High-z galaxies show sub-solar Fe enrichment and high O/Fe ratios.

New calibration for R23 metallicity indicator in high-z galaxies.

Abstract

We use photoionization models designed to reconcile the joint rest-UV-optical spectra of high-z star-forming galaxies to self-consistently infer the gas chemistry and nebular ionization and excitation conditions for ~150 galaxies from the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS), using only observations of their rest-optical nebular spectra. We find that the majority of z~2-3 KBSS galaxies are moderately O-rich, with an interquartile range in 12+log(O/H)=8.29-8.56, and have significantly sub-solar Fe enrichment, with an interquartile range of [Fe/H]=[-0.79,-0.53], contributing additional evidence in favor of super-solar O/Fe in high-z galaxies. Model-inferred ionization parameter and N/O are strongly correlated with common strong-line indices (such as O32 and N2O2), with the latter exhibiting similar behavior to local extragalactic HII regions. In contrast, diagnostics commonly used for measuring gas-phase O/H (such as N2 and O3N2) show relatively large scatter with the overall amount of oxygen present in the gas and behave differently than observed at z~0. We provide a new calibration for using R23 to measure O/H in typical high-z galaxies, although it is most useful for relatively O-rich galaxies; combining O32 and R23 does not yield a more effective calibration. Finally, we consider implications for the intrinsic correlations between physical conditions across the galaxy sample and find that N/O varies with O/H in high-z galaxies in a manner almost identical to local HII regions. However, we do not find a strong anti-correlation between ionization parameter and metallicity (O/H or Fe/H) in high-z galaxies, which is one of the principal bases for using strong-line ratios to infer oxygen abundance.