Diverse Oxygen Abundance in Early Galaxies Unveiled by Auroral Line Analysis with JWST

TL;DR

This study uses JWST observations to measure oxygen abundance in early galaxies, revealing diverse metallicity levels and significant scatter influenced by galaxy evolution processes, extending knowledge of primordial galaxy properties.

Contribution

First direct metallicity measurements of early galaxies using auroral lines with JWST, highlighting metallicity scatter and its implications for galaxy evolution.

Findings

Positive mass-metallicity correlation with offset from local relation

Large scatter in metallicity at high redshift, increasing with redshift

Detection of low-mass, metal-poor galaxies comparable to local universe

Abstract

We present deep JWST NIRSpec observations in the sightline of MACS J1149.5+2223, a massive cluster of galaxies at $z=0.54$. We report the spectroscopic redshift of 28 sources at $3<z<9.1$, including 9 sources with the detection of the [OIII]4363 auroral line. Combining these with 16 [OIII]4363-detected sources from publicly available JWST data, our sample consists of 25 galaxies with robust gas-phase metallicity measurements via the direct method. We observe a positive correlation between stellar mass and metallicity, with a $\sim0.5$\,dex offset down below the local relation. Interestingly, we find a larger than expected scatter of $\sim0.3$\,dex around the relation, which cannot be explained by redshift evolution among our sample or other third parameter. The scatter increases at higher redshift, and we attribute this to the enrichment process having higher stochasticity due to shallower potential wells, more intense feedback processes, and a higher galaxy merger rate. Despite reaching to a considerably low-mass regime ($\log M_*/M_\odot \sim7.3$), our samples have metallicity of $\log$(O/H)$+12>7$, i.e. comparable to the most metal poor galaxies in the local Universe. The search of primordial galaxies may be accomplished by extending toward a lower mass and/or by investigating inhomogeneities at smaller spatial scales. Lastly, we investigate potential systematics caused by the limitation of JWST's MSA observations. Caution is warranted when the target exceeds the slit size, as this situation could allow an overestimation of "global" metallicity, especially under the presence of strong negative metallicity gradient.