oai:arXiv.org:2403.08853
sciences: astrophysics
2024
5/29/2024
The unprecedented infrared spectroscopic capabilities of JWST have provided high-quality interstellar medium (ISM) metallicity measurements and enabled characterization of the gas-phase mass-metallicity relation (MZR) for galaxies at $z \gtrsim 5$ for the first time.
We analyze the gas-phase MZR and its evolution in a high-redshift suite of FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations at $z=5-12$ and for stellar masses $M_* \sim 10^6-10^{10} \rm{M}_\odot$.
These simulations implement a multi-channel stellar feedback model and produce broadly realistic galaxy properties, including when evolved to $z=0$.
The simulations predict very weak redshift evolution of the MZR over the redshift range studied, with the normalization of the MZR increasing by less than $0.01$ dex as redshift decreases from $z = 12$ to $z=5$.
The median MZR in the simulations is well-approximated as a constant power-law relation across this redshift range given by $\log(Z/Z_\odot) = 0.37\log(M_*/\rm{M}_\odot) - 4.3$.
We find good agreement between our best-fit model and recent observations made by JWST at high redshift.
The weak evolution of the MZR at $z > 5$ contrasts with the evolution at $z \lesssim 3$, where increasing normalization of the MZR with decreasing redshift is observed and predicted by most models.
The FIRE-2 simulations predict increasing scatter in the gas-phase MZR with decreasing stellar mass, in qualitative agreement with some observations.
;Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures
Marszewski, Andrew,Sun, Guochao,Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André,Hayward, Christopher C.,Feldmann, Robert, 2024, The High-Redshift Gas-Phase Mass-Metallicity Relation in FIRE-2