Mass-Metallicity Relation during the Epoch of Reionization in the CROC Simulations

Kavli Affiliate: Nickolay Gnedin

| First 5 Authors: Isaac Noel, Hanjue Zhu, Nickolay Gnedin, ,

| Summary:

The low-redshift mass-metallicity relation (MZR) is well studied, but the
high-redshift MZR remains difficult to observe. To study the early MZR further,
we analyze the Cosmic Reionization on Computers (CROC) simulations with a focus
on the MZR from redshifts 5 to 10. We find that, across all redshifts, CROC
galaxies exhibit similar stellar-phase and gas-phase MZRs that flatten with
higher stellar mass. We attribute this flattening to the inaccurate star
formation and feedback modeling in CROC (star formation is overly suppressed in
massive CROC galaxies). In addition, we show that the ratio between stellar
metallicity and gas metallicity ($Z_*/Z_{gas}$) decreases as stellar age
increases, meaning that in CROC galaxies, gas accretion rate is lower than
metal production rate. With JWST we will be able to compare our predictions to
observations of the Epoch of Reionization and understand better early galaxy
formation.

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