We report on the discovery of 28 z \approx 0.8 metal-poor galaxies in DEEP2 .
These galaxies were selected for their detection of the weak [ O iii ] \lambda 4363 emission line , which provides a “ direct ” measure of the gas-phase metallicity .
A primary goal for identifying these rare galaxies is to examine whether the fundamental metallicity relation ( FMR ) between stellar mass , gas metallicity , and star formation rate ( SFR ) holds for low stellar mass and high SFR galaxies .
The FMR suggests that higher SFR galaxies have lower metallicity ( at fixed stellar mass ) .
To test this trend , we combine spectroscopic measurements of metallicity and dust-corrected SFRs , with stellar mass estimates from modeling the optical photometry .
We find that these galaxies are 1.05 \pm 0.61 dex above the z \sim 1 stellar mass–SFR relation , and 0.23 \pm 0.23 dex below the local mass–metallicity relation .
Relative to the FMR , the latter offset is reduced to 0.01 dex , but significant dispersion remains ( 0.29 dex with 0.16 dex due to measurement uncertainties ) .
This dispersion suggests that gas accretion , star formation and chemical enrichment have not reached equilibrium in these galaxies .
This is evident by their short stellar mass doubling timescale of \approx 100 ^ { +310 } _ { -75 } Myr that suggests stochastic star formation .
Combining our sample with other z \sim 1 metal-poor galaxies , we find a weak positive SFR–metallicity dependence ( at fixed stellar mass ) that is significant at 94.4 % confidence .
We interpret this positive correlation as recent star formation that has enriched the gas , but has not had time to drive the metal-enriched gas out with feedback mechanisms .