Bibcode
Sánchez Almeida, J.; Pérez-Montero, E.; Morales-Luis, A. B.; Muñoz-Tuñón, C.; García-Benito, R.; Nuza, S. E.; Kitaura, F. S.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 819, Issue 2, article id. 110, 15 pp. (2016).
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2016
Journal
Citations
57
Refereed citations
53
Description
Extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies are defined to have a gas-phase
metallicity smaller than a tenth of the solar value
(12+{log}[{{O/H}}]\lt 7.69). They are uncommon, chemically and possibly
dynamically primitive, with physical conditions characteristic of
earlier phases of the universe. We search for new XMPs in the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in a work that complements Paper I. This time,
high electron temperature objects are selected; metals are a main
coolant of the gas, so metal-poor objects contain high-temperature gas.
Using the algorithm k-means, we classify 788,677 spectra to select 1281
galaxies that have particularly intense [O iii]λ4363 with respect
to [O iii]λ5007, which is a proxy for high electron temperature.
The metallicity of these candidates was computed using a hybrid
technique consistent with the direct method, rendering 196 XMPs. A less
restrictive noise constraint provides a larger set with 332 candidates.
Both lists are provided in electronic format. The selected XMP sample
has a mean stellar mass around {10}8 {M}ȯ ,
with the dust mass ∼ {10}3{M}ȯ for
typical star-forming regions. In agreement with previous findings, XMPs
show a tendency to be tadpole-like or cometary. Their underlying stellar
continuum corresponds to a fairly young stellar population (\lt 1
{{Gyr}}), although young and aged stellar populations coexist at the
low-metallicity starbursts. About 10% of the XMPs show large N/O. Based
on their location in constrained cosmological numerical simulations,
XMPs have a strong tendency to appear in voids and to avoid galaxy
clusters. The puzzling 2%-solar low-metallicity threshold exhibited by
XMPs remains.