%0 Journal Article %T Metal-enriched galaxies in the first ∼1 billion years: evidence of a smooth metallicity evolution at z ∼ 5 %+ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) %+ Observatoire de Paris %A Poudel, Suraj %A Kulkarni, Varsha P. %A Cashman, Frances H. %A Frye, Brenda %A Péroux, Céline %A Rahmani, Hadi %A Quiret, Samuel %< avec comité de lecture %@ 0035-8711 %J Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society %I Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy P - Oxford Open Option A %V 491 %P 1008-1025 %8 2020 %D 2020 %Z 1910.10023 %Z 2020MNRAS.491.1008P %R 10.1093/mnras/stz3000 %K ISM: abundances %K galaxies: high-redshift %K quasars: absorption lines %K Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics] %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]Journal articles %X We present seven new abundance measurements of the elements O, C, and Si at z > 4.5, doubling the existing sample of weakly depleted elements in gas-rich galaxies, in order to constrain the first ∼1 billion years of cosmic metal evolution. These measurements are based on quasar spectra of damped Lyman α absorbers (DLAs) and sub-DLAs obtained with the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle (MIKE) and Magellan Echellette (MagE) spectrographs on Magellan-South, and the X-Shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope. We combine these new measurements with those drawn from the literature to estimate the N_{H I}-weighted binned mean metallicity of -1.51 ± 0.18 at z = 4.8. This metallicity value is in excellent agreement with the prediction from lower redshift DLAs, supporting the interpretation that the metallicity evolution is smooth at z ∼ 5, rather than showing a sudden decline at z > 4.7. Furthermore, the metallicity evolution trends for the DLAs and sub-DLAs are similar within our uncertainties. We also find that the [C/O] ratios for z ∼ 5 DLAs are consistent with those of the very metal-poor DLAs. Additionally, using [C/O] and [Si/O] to constrain the nucleosynthesis models, we estimate that the probability distributions of the progenitor star masses for three relatively metal-poor DLAs are centred around 12-17 M. Finally, the z ∼ 5 absorbers show a different metallicity-velocity dispersion relation than lower redshift DLAs, suggesting that they may be tracing a different population of galaxies. %G English %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03667140/document %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03667140/file/stz3000.pdf %L insu-03667140 %U https://insu.hal.science/insu-03667140 %~ OBSPM %~ INSU %~ CNRS %~ UNIV-AMU %~ CNES %~ LAM %~ OSU-INSTITUT-PYTHEAS %~ PSL %~ OBSPM-PSL %~ TEST3-HALCNRS