Swathya Singh

Oct 15, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Carnegie Observatories |Swathya Singh

The JWST is allowing new measurements of gas-phase metallicities in galaxies between cosmic noon and cosmic dawn. The most robust approach uses luminosity ratios between the excited auroral transition, [O iii] 4364 Å, and the lower [O iii] 5008 Å/4960 Å lines to determine the gas temperature. The ratio of the luminosities in the latter transitions to those in hydrogen Balmer series lines then yield relatively clean metallicity estimates.

Oct 15, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Carnegie Observatories |Los Alamos |Swathya Singh

One key to tracing and understanding galaxy formation and evolution is to determine the cosmic chemical enrichment history. An important goal here is to robustly determine the average redshift evolution of the gas-phase metallicity in the interstellar medium (ISM) of distant galaxies. In addition, there is a ‘mass–metallicity relationship’, expressing correlations between the gas-phase metallicity and stellar mass (e.g. Tremonti et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al.