Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 430, Issue 4, Pages 2891-2895Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stt083
Keywords
galaxies: abundances; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: high-redshift; galaxies: stellar content
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council
- Royal Society
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/J001422/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/J001422/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We present a simple, redshift-independent analytic model that explains the local fundamental metallicity relation (FMR), taking into account the physical processes of star formation, inflow of metal-poor intergalactic medium (IGM) gas, and the outflow of metal-rich interstellar medium (ISM) gas. We show that the physics of the FMR can be summarized as follows: for massive galaxies with stellar mass M-* >= 10(11) M-circle dot, ISM metal enrichment due to star formation is compensated by inflow of metal-poor IGM gas, leading to a constant value of the gas metallicity with star formation rate (SFR); outflows are rendered negligible as a result of the large potential wells of these galaxies. On the other hand, as a result of their smaller SFR, less massive galaxies produce less heavy elements that are also more efficiently ejected due to their shallow potential wells; as a result, for a given M-*, the gas metallicity decreases with SFR. For such galaxies, the outflow efficiency determines both the slope and the knee of the metallicity-SFR relation. Without changing any parameters, this simple model is also successfully matched to the gas fraction-gas metallicity relation observed for a sample of about 260 nearby galaxies.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available