Integral field spectroscopy with SINFONI of VVDS galaxies★ II. The mass-metallicity relation at 1.2 < z < 1.6

Aims. This work aims to provide a first insight into the mass-metall icity (MZ) relation of star-forming galaxies at redshift z�1: 4. To reach this goal, we present a first set of nine VVDS (VIMOS VLT Deep Survey) galaxies observed with the NIR integral-field spectrograph SINFONI on the VLT. Methods. Oxygen abundances are derived from empirical indicators based on the ratio between strong nebular emission-lines (H� , (Nii)6584A and (Sii)6717,6731AA). Stellar masses are deduced from SED fitting w ith Charlot & Bruzual (2003) population synthesis models, and star formation rates are derived from (Oii)3727A and Hemission-line luminosities. Results. We find a typical shift of 0: 2− 0: 4 dex towards lower metallicities for the z�1: 4 galaxies, compared to the MZ-relation in the local universe as derived from SDSS data. However, this small sample does not show any clear correlation between stellar mass and metallicity, unlike other larger samples at different redshift (z�0, z�0: 7, and z�2). Indeed, our galaxies lie just under the relation at z �2, and show a small trend for more massive galaxies to be more metallic (�0: 1 logarithmic slope). There are two possible explanations to account for these observations. F irst, our galaxies present higher specific star formation ra tes when compared to the global VVDS sample which could explain the particularly low metallicity of these galaxies as already shown in the SDSS sample. Second, inflow of metal-poor gas due to tidal interac tions could also explain the low metallicity of these galaxi es as three of these nine galaxies show clear signatures of merging in their velocity fields. Finally, we find that the metallicity of fou r galaxies is lower by�0: 2 to 0: 4 dex if we take into account the N/O abundance ratio in their metallicity estimate.

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