TY - JOUR
T1 - The MOSDEF survey
T2 - towards a complete census of the z ∼2.3 star-forming galaxy population
AU - Runco, Jordan N.
AU - Shapley, Alice E.
AU - Sanders, Ryan L.
AU - Kriek, Mariska
AU - Reddy, Naveen A.
AU - Coil, Alison L.
AU - Mobasher, Bahram
AU - Siana, Brian
AU - Topping, Michael W.
AU - Freeman, William R.
AU - Shivaei, Irene
AU - Azadi, Mojegan
AU - Price, Sedona H.
AU - Leung, Gene C.K.
AU - Fetherolf, Tara
AU - De Groot, Laura
AU - Zick, Tom
AU - Fornasini, Francesca M.
AU - Barro, Guillermo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12/1
Y1 - 2022/12/1
N2 - We analyse the completeness of the MOSDEF survey, in which z ∼ 2 galaxies were selected for rest-optical spectroscopy from well-studied HST extragalactic legacy fields down to a fixed rest-optical magnitude limit (HAB = 24.5). The subset of z ∼ 2 MOSDEF galaxies with high signal-to-noise (S/N) emission-line detections analysed in previous work represents a small minority (<10 per cent) of possible z ∼ 2 MOSDEF targets. It is therefore crucial to understand how representative this high S/N subsample is, while also more fully exploiting the MOSDEF spectroscopic sample. Using spectral-energy distribution (SED) models and rest-optical spectral stacking, we compare the MOSDEF z ∼ 2 high S/N subsample with the full MOSDEF sample of z ∼ 2 star-forming galaxies with redshifts, the latter representing an increase in sample size of more than a factor of three. We find that both samples have similar emission-line properties, in particular in terms of the magnitude of the offset from the local star-forming sequence on the [N ii] BPT diagram. There are small differences in median host galaxy properties, including the stellar mass (M∗), star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR), and UVJ colours; however, these offsets are minor considering the wide spread of the distributions. Using SED modelling, we also demonstrate that the sample of z ∼ 2 star-forming galaxies observed by the MOSDEF survey is representative of the parent catalog of available such targets. We conclude that previous MOSDEF results on the evolution of star-forming galaxy emission-line properties were unbiased relative to the parent z ∼ 2 galaxy population.
AB - We analyse the completeness of the MOSDEF survey, in which z ∼ 2 galaxies were selected for rest-optical spectroscopy from well-studied HST extragalactic legacy fields down to a fixed rest-optical magnitude limit (HAB = 24.5). The subset of z ∼ 2 MOSDEF galaxies with high signal-to-noise (S/N) emission-line detections analysed in previous work represents a small minority (<10 per cent) of possible z ∼ 2 MOSDEF targets. It is therefore crucial to understand how representative this high S/N subsample is, while also more fully exploiting the MOSDEF spectroscopic sample. Using spectral-energy distribution (SED) models and rest-optical spectral stacking, we compare the MOSDEF z ∼ 2 high S/N subsample with the full MOSDEF sample of z ∼ 2 star-forming galaxies with redshifts, the latter representing an increase in sample size of more than a factor of three. We find that both samples have similar emission-line properties, in particular in terms of the magnitude of the offset from the local star-forming sequence on the [N ii] BPT diagram. There are small differences in median host galaxy properties, including the stellar mass (M∗), star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR), and UVJ colours; however, these offsets are minor considering the wide spread of the distributions. Using SED modelling, we also demonstrate that the sample of z ∼ 2 star-forming galaxies observed by the MOSDEF survey is representative of the parent catalog of available such targets. We conclude that previous MOSDEF results on the evolution of star-forming galaxy emission-line properties were unbiased relative to the parent z ∼ 2 galaxy population.
KW - galaxies: ISM
KW - galaxies: evolution
KW - galaxies: high-redshift
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stac2402
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stac2402
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85145263735
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 517
SP - 4337
EP - 4354
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 3
ER -