- Hayashi, Masao;
- Motohara, Kentaro;
- Shimasaku, Kazuhiro;
- Onodera, Masato;
- Uchimoto, Yuka Katsuno;
- Kashikawa, Nobunari;
- Yoshida, Makiko;
- Okamura, Sadanori;
- Ly, Chun;
- Malkan, Matthew A
We present spectroscopy of 15 star-forming BzK galaxies (sBzKs) with K(AB)<23
in the Subaru Deep Field, for which Halpha and some other emission lines are
detected in 0.9 to 2.3 micron spectra with a resolution of R=500. Using Halpha
luminosities, we obtain star formation rates (SFRs), and then specific SFRs
(SSFRs) dividing SFRs by stellar masses, which are derived from SED fitting to
BVRi'z'K photometry. It is found that sBzKs with higher stellar masses have
larger SFRs. A negative correlation is seen between stellar mass and SSFR,
which is consistent with the previous results for z~2 galaxies. This implies
that a larger growth of stellar mass occurs in less massive galaxies. In
addition, gas-phase oxygen abundances, 12+log(O/H), are derived from the ratio
of NII(lambda 6584) to Halpha using the N2 index method. We have found a
correlation between stellar mass and oxygen abundance in the sense that more
massive sBzKs tend to be more metal rich, which is qualitatively consistent
with the relation for UV-selected z~2 galaxies. However, the metallicity of the
sBzKs is ~0.2 dex higher than that of UV-selected galaxies with similar stellar
masses, which is significant considering the small uncertainties. The sBzKs in
our sample have redder R-K colors than the UV-selected galaxies. This galaxy
color-dependence in the oxygen abundance may be caused by older or dustier
galaxies having higher metallicities at z~2.