The AURORA Survey: High-Redshift Empirical Metallicity Calibrations from Electron Temperature Measurements at z=2-10

Understand

We present detections of auroral emission lines of [OIII], [OII], [SIII], and [SII] in deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy for 41 star-forming galaxies at $z=1.4-7.2$ from the AURORA survey.

• We combine these new observations with 98 star-forming galaxies at $z=1.3-10.6$ with detected auroral lines drawn from the literature to form a sample of 139 high-redshift galaxies with robust electron temperature and direct-method oxygen abundance determinations.
• This sample notably covers a wider dynamic range in metallicity than previous work, spanning $0.02-0.9$~Z$_\odot$.
• We calibrate empirical relations between 19 emission-line ratios and oxygen abundance, providing a robust tool set to infer accurate gas-phase metallicities of high-redshift galaxies when auroral lines are not detected.