EMPRESS. XIII. Chemical Enrichment of Young Galaxies Near and Far at z ∼ 0 and 4–10: Fe/O, Ar/O, S/O, and N/O Measurements with a Comparison of Chemical Evolution Models

Abstract

We present gas-phase elemental abundance ratios of thirteen local extremely metal-poor galaxies (EMPGs), including our new Keck/LRIS spectroscopy determinations together with 33 James Webb Space Telescope z ∼ 4–10 star-forming galaxies in the literature, and compare chemical evolution models. We develop chemical evolution models with the yields of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), Type Ia SNe, hypernovae (HNe), and pair-instability supernovae (PISNe), and compare the EMPGs and high- z galaxies in conjunction with dust depletion contributions. We find that high Fe/O values of EMPGs can (cannot) be explained by PISN metal enrichments (CCSN/HN enrichments even with the mixing-and-fallback mechanism enhancing iron abundance), while the observed Ar/O and S/O values are much smaller than the predictions of the PISN models. The abundance ratios of EMPGs can be explained by the combination of Type Ia SNe and CCSNe/HNe whose inner layers of argon and sulfur mostly fallback, which are comparable to the Sculptor stellar chemical abundance distribution, suggesting that early chemical enrichment has taken place in the EMPGs. Comparing our chemical evolution models with the star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 4–10, we find that the Ar/O and S/O ratios of the high- z galaxies are comparable to those of the CCSN/HN models, while the majority of high- z galaxies do not have constraints good enough to rule out contributions from PISNe. The high N/O ratio recently reported in GN-z11 cannot be explained even by rotating PISNe, but could be reproduced by the winds of rotating Wolf–Rayet stars that end up as a direct collapse.

Keywords

• Galaxy chemical evolution
• Galaxy evolution
• Chemical enrichment
• Chemical abundances
• Galaxy formation
• Sculptor dwarf elliptical galaxy