The Luminosity and Metallicity Relation of distant luminous infrared galaxies

Abstract

Oxygen abundances [12+log(O/H)] in the interstellar medium of a large sample of distant (z>0.4) luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) were estimated from their extinction corrected emission-line ratios, on the basis of the VLT/FORS2 spectra with good S/N and moderate resolution. These LIRGs were selected from ISOCAM deep survey fields (CFRS, UDSR, UDSF). They show oxygen abundances ranging from 8.36 to 8.93, with a median value of 8.67, which is 0.5 lower than that of the local bright disks (i.e., L*) at the given magnitude. A significant fraction of distant large disks are indeed LIRGs. Such massive disks could have formed ~50% of their metals and stellar masses since z~1.

7 pages, 2 PS figures, to be published in "Starbursts: From 30 Doradus to Lyman Break Galaxies", held in IoA Cambridge, UK, ed. R. de Grijs & R. M. Gonzalez Delgado (Dordrecht: Kluwer)