Strong line metallicity calibrations are widely used to determine the gas phase metallicities of individual HII regions and entire galaxies. Over a decade ago, based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4), Kewley \& Ellison published the coefficients of third-order polynomials that can be used to convert between different strong line metallicity calibrations for global galaxy spectra. Here, we update the work of Kewley \& Ellison in three ways. First, by using a newer data release (DR7), we approximately double the number of galaxies used in polynomial fits, providing statistically improved polynomial coefficients. Second, we include in the calibration suite five additional metallicity diagnostics that have been proposed in the last decade and were not included by Kewley \& Ellison. Finally, we develop a new machine learning approach for converting between metallicity calibrations. The random forest algorithm is non-parametric and therefore more flexible than polynomial conversions, due to its ability to capture non-linear behaviour in the data. The random forest method yields the same accuracy as the (updated) polynomial conversions, but has the significant advantage that a single model can be applied over a wide range of metallicities, without the need to distinguish upper and lower branches in $R_{23}$ calibrations. The trained random forest is made publicly available for use in the community.
In this study, photometric metallicity and absolute magnitude calibrations were derived using F-G spectral type main-sequence stars in the Solar neighbourhood with precise spectroscopic, photometric and Gaia astrometric data for UBV photometry. The sample consists of 504 main-sequence stars covering the temperature, surface gravity and colour index intervals $5300<T_{eff} < 7300$ K, $\log g > 4$ (cgs) and $0.3<(B-V)_0<0.8$ mag, respectively. Stars with relative trigonometric parallax errors $σ_π/π\leq0.01$ were preferred from Gaia DR2 data for the estimation of their $M_V$ absolute magnitudes.…
We investigate the relationship between the dust-to-metals ratio (D/M) and the local interstellar medium environment at ~2 kpc resolution in five nearby galaxies: IC342, M31, M33, M101, and NGC628. A modified blackbody model with a broken power-law emissivity is used to model the dust emission from 100 to 500 um observed by Herschel. We utilize the metallicity gradient derived from auroral line measurements in HII regions whenever possible. Both archival and new CO rotational line and HI 21 cm maps are adopted to calculate gas surface density, including new wide field CO and HI maps for IC342 …
We present polynomial conversions between each of 11 different strong line gas-phase metallicity calibrations, each based on $\sim$ 1.1 million star-forming spaxels in the public Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 15 (DR15) Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. For this sample, which is $\sim$ 20 times larger than previous works, we present 5th order polynomial fits for each of 110 possible calibration conversions, for both Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)-type and Milky Way (MW)-type dust corrections. The typical $2σ$ scatter around our polynomial fits is 0…
Ultraviolet (UV) observations of local star-forming galaxies have begun to establish an empirical baseline for interpreting the rest-UV spectra of reionization-era galaxies. However, existing high-ionization emission line measurements at $z>6$ ($\mathrm{W_{C IV, 0}} \gtrsim 20$ Å) are uniformly stronger than observed locally ($\mathrm{W_{C IV, 0}} \lesssim 2$ Å), likely due to the relatively high metallicities ($Z/Z_\odot > 0.1$) typically probed by UV surveys of nearby galaxies. We present new HST/COS spectra of six nearby ($z<0.01$) extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs, $Z/Z_\odot \lesssim 0.…
We aim to quantify the relation between the dust-to-gas mass ratio (DTG) and gas-phase metallicity of $z=$2.1-2.5 luminous galaxies and contrast this high-redshift relation against analogous constraints at z$=$0. We present a sample of ten star-forming main-sequence galaxies in the redshift range $2.1<z<2.5$ with rest-optical emission-line information available from the MOSDEF survey and with ALMA 1.2 millimetre and CO J$=$3-2 follow-up observations. The galaxies have stellar masses ranging from $10^{10.3}$ to $10^{10.6}\,\rm{M}_\odot$ and cover a range in star-formation rate from 35 to 145 $\…
We present detections of the CO(4-3) and [C I] 609 $μ$m spectral lines, as well as the dust continuum at 480.5 GHz (rest-frame), in 3C 368, a Fanaroff-Riley class II (FR-II) galaxy at redshift (z) 1.131. 3C 368 has a large stellar mass, ~ 3.6 x 10$^{11}$ M$_\odot$, and is undergoing an episode of vigorous star formation, at a rate of ~ 350 M$_\odot$/yr, and active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity, with radio-emitting lobes extended over ~ 73 kpc. Our observations allow us to inventory the molecular-gas reservoirs in 3C 368 by applying three independent methods: (1) using the CO(4-3)-line lumino…
We present results from the analysis of 401 RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) belonging to the field of the Milky Way (MW). For a fraction of them multi-band ($V$, $K_{\rm s}$, $W1$) photometry, metal abundances, extinction values and pulsation periods are available in the literature and accurate trigonometric parallaxes measured by the Gaia mission alongside Gaia $G$-band time-series photometry have become available with the Gaia second data release (DR2) on 2018 April 25. Using a Bayesian fitting approach we derive new near-, mid-infrared period-absolute magnitude-metallicity ($PMZ$) relations and new a…
Photometric metallicity of Galactic RR Lyrae stars in the Gaia DR3 era
University of Delhi(德里大学);Indian Institute of Astrophysics(印度天体物理研究所);Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics(大学间天文与天体物理中心);University of Petroleum and Energy Studies(石油与能源大学)
Nonlinear Color-Metallicity Relations of Globular Clusters. V. Nonlinear Absorption-line Index versus Metallicity Relations and Bimodal Index Distributions of M31 Globular Clusters
Recent observations have successfully detected [O III] $88.3\,{\rm μm}$ and [C II] $157.6\,{\rm μm}$ lines from galaxies in the early Universe with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). Combining cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and radiative transfer calculations, we present relations between the metal line emission and galaxy evolution at $z=6-15$. We find that galaxies during their starburst phases have high [O III] luminosity of $\sim 10^{42}~\rm erg~s^{-1}$. Once supernova feedback quenches star formation, [O III] luminosities rapidly decrease and continue to be zero for $\sim 1…
CO is the most widely used observational tracer of molecular gas. The observable CO luminosity is translated to H_2 mass via a conversion factor, X_CO, which is a source of uncertainty and bias. Despite variations in X_CO, the empirically-determined solar neighborhood value is often applied across different galactic environments. To improve understanding of X_CO, we employ 3D magnetohydrodynamics simulations of the interstellar medium (ISM) in galactic disks with a large range of gas surface densities, allowing for varying metallicity, far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation, and cosmic ray ionization…
We present ultra-deep Keck/MOSFIRE rest-optical spectra of two star-forming galaxies at z=2.18 in the COSMOS field with bright emission lines, representing more than 20~hours of total integration. The fidelity of these spectra enabled the detection of more than 20 unique emission lines for each galaxy, including the first detection of the auroral [O II]$λλ$7322,7332 lines at high redshift. We use these measurements to calculate the electron temperature in the low-ionization O$^+$ zone of the ionized ISM and derive abundance ratios of O/H, N/H, and N/O using the direct method. The N/O and $α$/F…