Clues to the Origin of the Mass-Metallicity Relation: Dependence on Star Formation Rate and Galaxy Size

2007/11/29 by Sara L. Ellison, David R. Patton, Luc Simard +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Elliptical galaxy #Extragalactic astronomy #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy formation and evolution #Luminous infrared galaxy #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Sky #Star formation #Stellar mass #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/527296

Accepted by ApJ Letters

arxiv created 2007/11/29 · openalex publication_date 2007/12/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We use a sample of 43,690 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 to study the systematic effects of specific star formation rate (SSFR) and galaxy size (as measured by the half-light radius, r h ) on the mass-metallicity relation. We find that galaxies with high SSFR or large r h for their stellar mass have systematically lower gas-phase metallicities (by up to 0.2 dex) than galaxies with low SSFR or small r h . We discuss possible origins for these dependencies, including galactic winds/outflows, abundance gradients, environment, and star formation rate efficiencies.

Citations

• The Diverse Properties of the Most Ultraviolet‐Luminous Galaxies Discovered by GALEX
• Metal Abundances of KISS Galaxies. IV. Galaxian Luminosity‐Metallicity Relations in the Optical and Near‐Infrared
• The Metallicity of Galaxy Disks: Infall versus Outflow
• Using Strong Lines to Estimate Abundances in Extragalactic H ii Regions and Starburst Galaxies
• The Origin and Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity Relationship for Galaxies: Results from Cosmological N -Body Simulations
• Past and future star formation in disk galaxies
• The Spatial Homogeneity of Nebular and Stellar Oxygen Abundances in the Local Group Dwarf Irregular Galaxy NGC 6822

Cited by

• THE WHIQII SURVEY: METALLICITIES AND SPECTROSCOPIC PROPERTIES OF LUMINOUS COMPACT BLUE GALAXIES
• A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE MASS-METALLICITY-STAR FORMATION RATE RELATION IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE. I. AN IMPROVED ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK AND CONFOUNDING SYSTEMATICS
• Potential-Driven Metal Cycling: JADES Census of Gas-Phase Metallicity for galaxies at 1 < z < 7
• Physical Properties and Environments of Nearby Galaxies

Related

• The origin of the galaxy size-stellar metallicity relation: A semi-analytical perspective
• The stellar Fundamental Metallicity Relation: the correlation between stellar mass, star-formation rate and stellar metallicity
• Both Stellar Mass and Gravitational Potential Shape the Gas-Phase Metallicity
• Galaxy metallicity near and far
• More fundamental than the fundamental metallicity relation: The effect of the stellar metallicity on the gas-phase mass-metallicity and gravitational potential-metallicity relations