English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

In the local universe, galaxies in clusters show different propertiescompared to more isolated systems. Understanding how this difference originatesand whether it is already in place at high redshift is still a matter ofdebate. Thanks to uniquely deep optical spectra from the VANDELS survey, weinvestigate environmental effects on the stellar mass-metallicity relation(MZR) for a sample of ~1000 star-forming galaxies at 2<z<4. We complement ourdataset with MOSFIRE follow-up of 21 galaxies to study the environmentaldependence of the gas-phase MZR. Robust stellar and gas metallicities arederived, respectively, from well-calibrated photospheric absorptions featuresat 1501 and 1719 \AA in the stacked spectra, and from optical emission lines([OII]3726-3729, [OIII]5007, and Hbeta) in individual systems. We characterizethe environment through multiple criteria by using the local galaxy densitymaps previously derived in VANDELS. We find that environmental effects are weakat these redshifts, and more important around the densest overdensitystructures, where galaxies have a lower stellar Z (by 0.2 dex) and a lowergas-phase Z (by 0.1 dex) compared to the field, with a significance of 1 and 2sigma, respectively. Crucially, this offset cannot be explained by a selectioneffect due to a higher SFR, a fainter UV continuum, or different dustattenuations and stellar ages. Despite the still low S/N of our results, wepropose a combination of increased mergers and high-speed encounters, moreefficient AGN feedback in dense cores, and cold gas inflows as viablemechanisms diluting the metal content of overdense galaxies or expelling theirmetals to the IGM. Finally, some tensions remain with semi-analytic models andhydrodynamical simulations, which predict no significant offset as a functionof host halo mass, suggesting that an explicit implementation of environmentalprocesses is needed.

The environmental dependence of the stellar and gas-phase mass-metallicity relation at 2 < z < 4