We investigate the relationships between stellar mass, gas-phase oxygen abundance (metallicity), star formation rate, and dust content of star-forming galaxies at z$sim$1.6 using Subaru/FMOS spectroscopy in the COSMOS field. The mass-metallicity rela
tion at $zsim1.6$ is steeper than the relation observed in the local Universe. The steeper MZ relation at $zsim1.6$ is mainly due to evolution in the stellar mass where the MZ relation begins to turnover and flatten. This turnover mass is 1.2 dex larger at $zsim1.6$. The most massive galaxies at $zsim1.6$ ($sim 10^{11}M_odot$) are enriched to the level observed in massive galaxies in the local Universe. The mass-metallicity relation we measure at $zsim1.6$ supports the suggestion of an empirical upper metallicity limit that does not significantly evolve with redshift. We find an anti-correlation between metallicity and star formation rate for galaxies at a fixed stellar mass at $zsim1.6$ which is similar to trends observed in the local Universe. We do not find a relation between stellar mass, metallicity and star formation rate that is independent of redshift; our data suggest that there is redshift evolution in this relation. We examine the relation between stellar mass, metallicity and dust extinction. We find that at a fixed stellar mass dustier galaxies tend to be more metal rich. From examination of the stellar masses, metallicities, SFRs and dust extinctions we conclude that stellar mass is most closely related to dust extinction.
The impact of environment on AGN activity up to z~1 is assessed by utilizing a mass-selected sample of galaxies from the 10k catalog of the zCOSMOS spectroscopic redshift survey. We identify 147 AGN by their X-ray emission as detected by XMM-Newton f
rom a parent sample of 7234 galaxies. We measure the fraction of galaxies with stellar mass M_*>2.5x10^10 Msun that host an AGN as a function of local overdensity using the 5th, 10th and 20th nearest neighbors that cover a range of physical scales (~1-4 Mpc). Overall, we find that AGNs prefer to reside in environments equivalent to massive galaxies with substantial levels of star formation. Specifically, AGNs with host masses between 0.25-1x10^11 Msun span the full range of environments (i.e., field-to-group) exhibited by galaxies of the same mass and rest-frame color or specific star formation rate. Host galaxies having M_*>10^11 Msun clearly illustrate the association with star formation since they are predominantly bluer than the underlying galaxy population and exhibit a preference for lower density regions analogous to SDSS studies of narrow-line AGN. To probe the environment on smaller physical scales, we determine the fraction of galaxies (M_*>2.5x10^10 Msun) hosting AGNs inside optically-selected groups, and find no significant difference with field galaxies. We interpret our results as evidence that AGN activity requires a sufficient fuel supply; the probability of a massive galaxy to have retained some sufficient amount of gas, as evidence by its ongoing star formation, is higher in underdense regions where disruptive processes (i.e., galaxy harrassment, tidal stripping) are lessened.
