High-velocity outflows from young star-forming galaxies in the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey

Abstract

We investigate galactic-scale outflows in the redshift range 0.71 ≤ z ≤ 1.63, using 413 K-band selected galaxies observed in the spectroscopic follow-up of the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey (UDSz). The galaxies have an average stellar mass of ∼109.5 M⊙ and span a wide range in rest-frame colours, representing typical star-forming galaxies at this epoch. We stack the spectra by various galaxy properties, including stellar mass, [O ii] equivalent width, star formation rate, specific star formation rate and rest-frame spectral indices. We find that outflows are present in virtually all spectral stacks, with velocities ranging from 100 to 1000 km s−1, indicating that large-scale outflowing winds are a common property at these redshifts. The highest velocity outflows (>500 km s−1) are found in galaxies with the highest stellar masses and the youngest stellar populations. Our findings suggest that high-velocity galactic outflows are mostly driven by star-forming processes rather than active galactic nuclei, with implied mass outflow rates comparable to the rates of star formation. Such behaviour is consistent with models required to reproduce the high-redshift mass–metallicity relation.