Paper detail

Nature of H-alpha selected galaxies at z>2. I. Main sequence and dusty star-forming galaxies

We present the results from our narrow-band imaging surveys of HAEs at z=2.2 and z=2.5 in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep survey Field with near-infrared camera MOIRCS on Subaru Telescope. We have constructed a clean sample of 63 star-forming galaxies at z=2.2 and 46 at z=2.5. For 12 (or ~92%) out of 13 Hαemitters (HAEs) at z=2.2, their Hαemission lines have been successfully detected by the spectroscopy. While about 42% of the red, massive HAEs with M_*>10^{10.8} M_\odot contain AGNs, most of the blue, less massive ones are likely to be star-forming galaxies. This suggests that the AGN may play an important role in galaxy evolution at the late stage of truncation. For the HAEs excluding possible AGNs, we estimate the gas-phase metallicities on the basis of [N~{\sc ii}]/Hαratios, and find that the metallicities of the Hαselected galaxies at z=2.2 are lower than those of local star-forming galaxies at fixed stellar mass, as shown by previous studies. Moreover, we present and discuss the so-called "main sequence" of star-forming galaxies at z>2 based on our unique sample of HAEs. By correlating the level of dust extinction with the location on the main sequence, we find that there are two kinds/modes of dusty star-forming galaxies: star-bursting galaxies and metal-rich normal star-forming galaxies.