TY - JOUR
T1 - Mass-metallicity relation from z=5 to the present
T2 - evidence for a transition in the mode of galaxy growth at z=2.6 due to the end of sustained primordial gas infall
AU - Møller, P.
AU - Fynbo, Johan Peter Uldall
AU - Ledoux, C.
AU - Nilsson, Kim
PY - 2013/4/21
Y1 - 2013/4/21
N2 - We analyse the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity relation in a sample of 110 Damped Lyman Α absorbers (DLAs) spanning the redshift range z = 0.11-5.06 and find that the zeropoint of the correlation changes significantly with redshift. The evolution is such that the zero-point is constant at the early phases of galaxy growth (i.e. no evolution) but then features a sharp break at z = 2.6 ± 0.2 with a rapid incline towards lower redshifts such that damped absorbers of identical masses are more metal rich at later times than earlier. The slope of this mass-metallicity correlation evolution is 0.35 ± 0.07 dex per unit redshift. We compare this result to similar studies of the redshift evolution of emission selected galaxy samples and find a remarkable agreement with the slope of the evolution of galaxies of stellar mass log(M*/M⊙) ≈ 8.5. This allows us to form an observational tie between damped absorbers and galaxies seen in emission. We use results from simulations to infer the virial mass of the dark matter halo of a typical DLA galaxy and find a ratio (Mvir/M*) ≈ 30. We compare our results to those of several other studies that have reported strong transitionlike events at redshifts around z = 2.5-2.6 and argue that all those observations can be understood as the consequence of a transition from a situation where galaxies were fed more unprocessed infalling gas than they could easily consume to one where they suddenly become infall starved and turn to mainly processing, or re-processing, of previously acquired gas.
AB - We analyse the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity relation in a sample of 110 Damped Lyman Α absorbers (DLAs) spanning the redshift range z = 0.11-5.06 and find that the zeropoint of the correlation changes significantly with redshift. The evolution is such that the zero-point is constant at the early phases of galaxy growth (i.e. no evolution) but then features a sharp break at z = 2.6 ± 0.2 with a rapid incline towards lower redshifts such that damped absorbers of identical masses are more metal rich at later times than earlier. The slope of this mass-metallicity correlation evolution is 0.35 ± 0.07 dex per unit redshift. We compare this result to similar studies of the redshift evolution of emission selected galaxy samples and find a remarkable agreement with the slope of the evolution of galaxies of stellar mass log(M*/M⊙) ≈ 8.5. This allows us to form an observational tie between damped absorbers and galaxies seen in emission. We use results from simulations to infer the virial mass of the dark matter halo of a typical DLA galaxy and find a ratio (Mvir/M*) ≈ 30. We compare our results to those of several other studies that have reported strong transitionlike events at redshifts around z = 2.5-2.6 and argue that all those observations can be understood as the consequence of a transition from a situation where galaxies were fed more unprocessed infalling gas than they could easily consume to one where they suddenly become infall starved and turn to mainly processing, or re-processing, of previously acquired gas.
U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stt067
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stt067
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 430
SP - 2680
EP - 2687
JO - Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices
JF - Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices
IS - 4
ER -