Discovery of Eight New Extremely Metal--Poor Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Abstract

We report the discovery of eight new extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPGs; 12+log(O/H) < 7.65) and the recovery of four previously known or suspected XMPGs (IZw18, HS0822+3542, HS0837+4717 and A1116+517) using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopy. These new objects were identified after an analysis of 250,000 galaxy spectra within an area of ~3000 deg^2 on the sky. Our oxygen abundance determinations have an accuracy of $\le$ 0.1 dex and are based on the temperature-sensitive [O {\sc iii}] $λ$4363 à line and on the direct calculation of the electron temperature. We briefly discuss a new method of oxygen abundance determinations using the [O {\sc ii}] $λ$7319,7330 à lines, which is particularly useful for SDSS emission-line spectra with redshifts $\le$~0.024 since the [O {\sc ii}] $λ$3727 à emission line falls outside of the SDSS wavelength range. We detect XMPGs with redshifts ranging from 0.0005 to 0.0443 and $M_g$ luminosities from $-$12\fm4 to $-$18\fm6. Our eight new XMPGs increase the number of known metal-deficient galaxies by approximately one quarter. The estimated surface density of XMPGs is 0.004 deg$^{-2}$ for $r$ $\le$ 17\fm77.

To appear in August 20 issue of ApJ Letters, 6 pages, 2 figures