First Census of Gas-phase Metallicity Gradients of Star-forming Galaxies
  in Overdense Environments at Cosmic Noon
  We report the first spatially resolved measurements of gas-phase metallicity
radial gradients in star-forming galaxies in overdense environments at
$z\gtrsim2$. The spectroscopic data are acquired by the \mg\ survey, a Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) cycle-28 medium program. This program is obtaining 45
orbits of WFC3/IR grism spectroscopy in the density peak regions of three
massive galaxy protoclusters (BOSS 1244, BOSS 1542 and BOSS 1441) at $z=2-3$.
Our sample in the BOSS 1244 field consists of 20 galaxies with stellar-mass
ranging from $10^{9.0}$ to $10^{10.3}$ \Msun\ , star formation rate (SFR) from
10 to 240 \Msun\,yr$^{-1}$, and global gas-phase metallicity (\oh) from 8.2 to
8.6. At $1\sigma$ confidence level, 2/20 galaxies in our sample show positive
(inverted) gradients -- the relative abundance of oxygen increasing with
galactocentric radius, opposite the usual trend. Furthermore, 1/20 shows
negative gradients and 17/20 are consistent with flat gradients. This high
fraction of flat/inverted gradients is uncommon in simulations and previous
observations conducted in blank fields at similar redshifts. To understand
this, we investigate the correlations among various observed properties of our
sample galaxies. We find an anticorrelation between metallicity gradient and
global metallicity of our galaxies residing in extreme overdensities, and a
marked deficiency of metallicity in our massive galaxies as compared to their
coeval field counterparts. We conclude that the cold-mode gas accretion plays
an active role in shaping the chemical evolution of galaxies in the
protocluster environments, diluting their central chemical abundance, and
flattening/inverting their metallicity gradients.
