The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations: Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift

Prerak Garg; Desika Narayanan; Nell Byler; Ryan L. Sanders; Alice E. Shapley; Allison L. Strom; Romeel Davé; Michaela Hirschmann; Christopher C. Lovell; Justin Otter; Gergö Popping; George C. Privon

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac43b8

The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations: Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift

Prerak Garg, Desika Narayanan, Nell Byler, Ryan L. Sanders, Alice E. Shapley, Allison L. Strom, Romeel Davé, Michaela Hirschmann, Christopher C. Lovell, Justin Otter, Gergö Popping, George C. Privon

Physics And Astronomy

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Abstract

The Baldwin, Philips, & Terlevich diagram of [O iii]/Hβ versus [N ii]/Hα (hereafter N2-BPT) has long been used as a tool for classifying galaxies based on the dominant source of ionizing radiation. Recent observations have demonstrated that galaxies at z ∼2 reside offset from local galaxies in the N2-BPT space. In this paper, we conduct a series of controlled numerical experiments to understand the potential physical processes driving this offset. We model nebular line emission in a large sample of galaxies, taken from the simba cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation, using the cloudy photoionization code to compute the nebular line luminosities from H ii regions. We find that the observed shift toward higher [O iii]/Hβ and [N ii]/Hα values at high redshift arises from sample selection: when we consider only the most massive galaxies M ∗ ∼1010-11 M ⊙, the offset naturally appears, due to their high metallicities. We predict that deeper observations that probe lower-mass galaxies will reveal galaxies that lie on a locus comparable to z ∼0 observations. Even when accounting for samples-selection effects, we find that there is a subtle mismatch between simulations and observations. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigate the impact of varying ionization parameters, H ii region densities, gas-phase abundance patterns, and increasing radiation field hardness on N2-BPT diagrams. We find that either decreasing the ionization parameter or increasing the N/O ratio of galaxies at fixed O/H can move galaxies along a self-similar arc in N2-BPT space that is occupied by high-redshift galaxies.

Original language	English
Article number	80
Journal	Astrophysical Journal
Volume	926
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac43b8
State	Published - Feb 1 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Chuck Steidel for providing KBSS data for our observational comparisons. simba was run using the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1, and ST/S002502/1, Durham University, and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. R.D. acknowledges support from the Wolfson Research Merit Award program of the U.K. Royal Society. P.G. and D.N. were funded by NSF AST-1909153.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.3847/1538-4357/ac43b8

Cite this

Garg, P., Narayanan, D., Byler, N., Sanders, R. L., Shapley, A. E., Strom, A. L., Davé, R., Hirschmann, M., Lovell, C. C., Otter, J., Popping, G., & Privon, G. C. (2022). The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations: Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift. Astrophysical Journal, 926(1), Article 80. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac43b8

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title = "The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations: Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift",

abstract = "The Baldwin, Philips, & Terlevich diagram of [O iii]/Hβ versus [N ii]/Hα (hereafter N2-BPT) has long been used as a tool for classifying galaxies based on the dominant source of ionizing radiation. Recent observations have demonstrated that galaxies at z ∼2 reside offset from local galaxies in the N2-BPT space. In this paper, we conduct a series of controlled numerical experiments to understand the potential physical processes driving this offset. We model nebular line emission in a large sample of galaxies, taken from the simba cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation, using the cloudy photoionization code to compute the nebular line luminosities from H ii regions. We find that the observed shift toward higher [O iii]/Hβ and [N ii]/Hα values at high redshift arises from sample selection: when we consider only the most massive galaxies M ∗ ∼1010-11 M ⊙, the offset naturally appears, due to their high metallicities. We predict that deeper observations that probe lower-mass galaxies will reveal galaxies that lie on a locus comparable to z ∼0 observations. Even when accounting for samples-selection effects, we find that there is a subtle mismatch between simulations and observations. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigate the impact of varying ionization parameters, H ii region densities, gas-phase abundance patterns, and increasing radiation field hardness on N2-BPT diagrams. We find that either decreasing the ionization parameter or increasing the N/O ratio of galaxies at fixed O/H can move galaxies along a self-similar arc in N2-BPT space that is occupied by high-redshift galaxies.",

author = "Prerak Garg and Desika Narayanan and Nell Byler and Sanders, {Ryan L.} and Shapley, {Alice E.} and Strom, {Allison L.} and Romeel Dav{\'e} and Michaela Hirschmann and Lovell, {Christopher C.} and Justin Otter and Gerg{\"o} Popping and Privon, {George C.}",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Chuck Steidel for providing KBSS data for our observational comparisons. simba was run using the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1, and ST/S002502/1, Durham University, and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. R.D. acknowledges support from the Wolfson Research Merit Award program of the U.K. Royal Society. P.G. and D.N. were funded by NSF AST-1909153. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.",

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T1 - The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations

T2 - Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift

AU - Garg, Prerak

AU - Narayanan, Desika

AU - Byler, Nell

AU - Sanders, Ryan L.

AU - Shapley, Alice E.

AU - Strom, Allison L.

AU - Davé, Romeel

AU - Hirschmann, Michaela

AU - Lovell, Christopher C.

AU - Otter, Justin

AU - Popping, Gergö

AU - Privon, George C.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Chuck Steidel for providing KBSS data for our observational comparisons. simba was run using the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1, and ST/S002502/1, Durham University, and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. R.D. acknowledges support from the Wolfson Research Merit Award program of the U.K. Royal Society. P.G. and D.N. were funded by NSF AST-1909153. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

PY - 2022/2/1

Y1 - 2022/2/1

N2 - The Baldwin, Philips, & Terlevich diagram of [O iii]/Hβ versus [N ii]/Hα (hereafter N2-BPT) has long been used as a tool for classifying galaxies based on the dominant source of ionizing radiation. Recent observations have demonstrated that galaxies at z ∼2 reside offset from local galaxies in the N2-BPT space. In this paper, we conduct a series of controlled numerical experiments to understand the potential physical processes driving this offset. We model nebular line emission in a large sample of galaxies, taken from the simba cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation, using the cloudy photoionization code to compute the nebular line luminosities from H ii regions. We find that the observed shift toward higher [O iii]/Hβ and [N ii]/Hα values at high redshift arises from sample selection: when we consider only the most massive galaxies M ∗ ∼1010-11 M ⊙, the offset naturally appears, due to their high metallicities. We predict that deeper observations that probe lower-mass galaxies will reveal galaxies that lie on a locus comparable to z ∼0 observations. Even when accounting for samples-selection effects, we find that there is a subtle mismatch between simulations and observations. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigate the impact of varying ionization parameters, H ii region densities, gas-phase abundance patterns, and increasing radiation field hardness on N2-BPT diagrams. We find that either decreasing the ionization parameter or increasing the N/O ratio of galaxies at fixed O/H can move galaxies along a self-similar arc in N2-BPT space that is occupied by high-redshift galaxies.

AB - The Baldwin, Philips, & Terlevich diagram of [O iii]/Hβ versus [N ii]/Hα (hereafter N2-BPT) has long been used as a tool for classifying galaxies based on the dominant source of ionizing radiation. Recent observations have demonstrated that galaxies at z ∼2 reside offset from local galaxies in the N2-BPT space. In this paper, we conduct a series of controlled numerical experiments to understand the potential physical processes driving this offset. We model nebular line emission in a large sample of galaxies, taken from the simba cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation, using the cloudy photoionization code to compute the nebular line luminosities from H ii regions. We find that the observed shift toward higher [O iii]/Hβ and [N ii]/Hα values at high redshift arises from sample selection: when we consider only the most massive galaxies M ∗ ∼1010-11 M ⊙, the offset naturally appears, due to their high metallicities. We predict that deeper observations that probe lower-mass galaxies will reveal galaxies that lie on a locus comparable to z ∼0 observations. Even when accounting for samples-selection effects, we find that there is a subtle mismatch between simulations and observations. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigate the impact of varying ionization parameters, H ii region densities, gas-phase abundance patterns, and increasing radiation field hardness on N2-BPT diagrams. We find that either decreasing the ionization parameter or increasing the N/O ratio of galaxies at fixed O/H can move galaxies along a self-similar arc in N2-BPT space that is occupied by high-redshift galaxies.

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The BPT Diagram in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations: Understanding the Physics Driving Offsets at High Redshift

Abstract

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