Metal-enriched galaxies in the first ∼1 billion years: evidence of a smooth metallicity evolution at z ∼ 5. Issue 1 (30th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Poudel, Suraj; Kulkarni, Varsha P; Cashman, Frances H; Frye, Brenda; Péroux, Céline; Rahmani, Hadi; Quiret, Samuel
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 491:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 1008
• Page End: 1025
• Publication Date: 2019-10-30
• Subjects: ISM: abundances -- galaxies: high-redshift -- quasars: absorption lines; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz3000
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We present seven new abundance measurements of the elements O, C, and Si at z > 4.5, doubling the existing sample of weakly depleted elements in gas-rich galaxies, in order to constrain the first ∼1 billion years of cosmic metal evolution. These measurements are based on quasar spectra of damped Lyman α absorbers (DLAs) and sub-DLAs obtained with the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle (MIKE) and Magellan Echellette (MagE) spectrographs on Magellan-South, and the X-Shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope. We combine these new measurements with those drawn from the literature to estimate the $N_{\rm H\, {\small I}}$ -weighted binned mean metallicity of −1.51 ± 0.18 at z = 4.8. This metallicity value is in excellent agreement with the prediction from lower redshift DLAs, supporting the interpretation that the metallicity evolution is smooth at z ∼ 5, rather than showing a sudden decline at z > 4.7. Furthermore, the metallicity evolution trends for the DLAs and sub-DLAs are similar within our uncertainties. We also find that the [C/O] ratios for z ∼ 5 DLAs are consistent with those of the very metal-poor DLAs. Additionally, using [C/O] and [Si/O] to constrain the nucleosynthesis models, we estimate that the probability distributions of the progenitor star masses for three relatively metal-poor DLAs are centred around 12–17 M⊙ . Finally, the z ∼ 5 absorbers show a different metallicity–velocity dispersion relation than lower redshift DLAs, suggesting that they may be tracing a different population of galaxies.