| LSD: Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics. I: Mass, metallicity and gas at z~3.1 (2009) | |||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||
| We present the first results of a project, LSD, aimed at obtaining spatially-resolved, near-infrared spectroscopy of a complete sample of Lyman-Break Galaxies at z~3. Deep observations with adaptive optics resulted in the detection of the main optical lines, such as [OII]3727, Hbeta and [OIII]5007, which are used to study sizes, SFRs, morphologies, gas-phase metallicities, gas fractions and effective yields. Optical, near-IR and Spitzer/IRAC photometry is used to measure stellar mass. We obtain that morphologies are usually complex, with the presence of several peaks of emissions and companions that are not detected in broad-band images. Typical metallicities are 10-50% solar, with a strong evolution of the mass-metallicity relation from lower redshifts. In contrast to similar samples of galaxies at lower redshifts, LSD galaxies do not show a correlation between SFR and stellar mass. This imply that a large fraction of galaxies are creating stars in short bursts rather than during a more prolonged activity. Stellar masses, gas fraction, and evolutionary stages vary significantly among the galaxies, while gas mass and exhaustion times are more homogeneous. In contrast with observations in the local universe, effective yields decrease with stellar mass and reach solar values at the low-mass end of the sample. This effect can be reproduced by gas infall with rates proportional to the SFRs. Outflows are present but are not needed to explain the mass-metallicity relation. We conclude that a large fraction of these galaxies are actively creating stars during starbursts after major episodes of gas infall or merging.. Comment: submitted to MNRAS | |||||||||
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