Synthetic nebular emission lines of simulated galaxies over cosmic time

Abstract

This article presents an up-dated analysis of synthetic optical and UV emission lines of simulated galaxies over cosmic time. The strong emission lines are derived from self-consistently coupling novel spectral models accounting for nebular emission from young stars, AGN and Post-AGB stars to cosmological zoom-in as well as large-scale simulations. Investigating the evolution of optical line-ratios in the BPT diagrams, the simulations can successfully reproduce the observed trend of [OIII]/Hβ ratio increasing from low to high redshifts, due to evolving star formation rate and gas metallicity. Standard selection criteria in the BPT diagrams can appropriately distinguish the main ionising source(s) of galaxies at low redshifts, but they are less reliable for metal-poor galaxies, dominating the early Universe. To robustly classify the ionising radiation of such metal-poor galaxies, diagnostic diagrams based on luminosity ratios of UV lines are discussed. The novel interface between simulations and observations is potentially important for the interpretation of high-quality spectra of very distant galaxies to be gathered by next-generation telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope.