NGDEEP: The Star Formation and Ionization Properties of Galaxies at 1.7 < z < 3.4

Abstract We use JWST/NIRISS slitless spectroscopy from the Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public (NGDEEP) Survey to investigate the physical condition of 178 star-forming galaxies at 1.7 &lt; z &lt; 3.4. At these redshifts, the deep NGDEEP NIRISS slitless spectroscopy covers the [O ii ] λλ 3726,3729, [O iii ] λλ 4959,5007, H β and H α emission features for galaxies with stellar masses <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>log</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="italic">M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>*</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="italic">M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>⊙</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> <mml:mo>≳</mml:mo> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:math> , nearly a factor of 100 lower than previous studies. We focus on the [O ii ]/[O iii ] (O 32 ) ratio which is primarily…