Direct T$_e$ metallicity calibration of R23 in strong line emitters

Abstract

The gas metallicity of galaxies is often estimated using strong emission lines such as the optical lines of [OIII] and [OII]. The most common measure is "R23", defined as ([OII]$λ$$λ$3726, 3729 + [OIII]$λ$$λ$4959,5007)/H$β$. Most calibrations for these strong-line metallicity indicators are for continuum selected galaxies. We report a new empirical calibration of R23 for extreme emission-line galaxies using a large sample of about 800 star-forming green pea galaxies with reliable T$_e$-based gas-phase metallicity measurements. This sample is assembled from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 13 with the equivalent width of the line [OIII]$λ$5007 $>$ 300 à or the equivalent width of the line H$β$ $>$ 100 à in the redshift range 0.011 $<$ z $<$ 0.411. For galaxies with strong emission lines and large ionization parameter (which manifests as log [OIII]$λ$$λ$4959,5007/[OII]$λ$$λ$3726,3729 $\geq$ 0.6), R23 monotonically increases with log(O/H) and the double-value degeneracy is broken. Our calibration provides metallicity estimates that are accurate to within $\sim$ 0.14 dex in this regime. Many previous R23 calibrations are found to have bias and large scatter for extreme emission-line galaxies. We give formulae and plots to directly convert R23 and [OIII]$λ$$λ$4959,5007/[OII]$λ$$λ$3726,3729 to log(O/H). Since green peas are best nearby analogs of high-redshift Lyman-$α$ emitting galaxies, the new calibration offers a good way to estimate the metallicities of both extreme emission-line galaxies and high-redshift Lyman-$α$ emitting galaxies. We also report on 15 galaxies with metallicities less than 1/12 solar, with the lowest metallicities being 12+log(O/H) = 7.25 and 7.26.

17 pages, 10 figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ