A fundamental relation between mass, SFR and metallicity in local and high redshift galaxies

By F. Mannucci, G. Cresci, R. Maiolino, A. Marconi, A. Gnerucci. 2010

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We show that the mass-metallicity relation observed in the local universe is due to a more general relation between stellar mass M*, gas-phase metallicity and SFR. Local galaxies define a tight surface in this 3D space, the Fundamental Metallicity Relation (FMR), with a small residual dispersion of ~0.05 dex in metallicity, i.e, ~12%. At low stellar mass, metallicity decreases sharply with increasing SFR, while at high stellar mass, metallicity does not depend on SFR. High redshift galaxies, up to z~2.5 are found to follow the same FMR defined by local SDSS galaxies, with no indication of evolution. The evolution of the mass-metallicity relation observed up to z=2.5 is due to the fact that galaxies with progressively higher SFRs, and therefore lower metallicities, are selected at increasing redshifts, sampling different parts of the same FMR. By introducing the new quantity mu_alpha=log(M*)-alpha log(SFR), with alpha=0.32, we define a projection of the FMR that minimizes the metallicity scatter of local galaxies. The same quantity also cancels out any redshift evolution up to z~2.5, i.e, all galaxies have the same range of values of mu_0.32. At z>2.5, evolution of about 0.6 dex off the FMR is observed, with high-redshift galaxies showing lower metallicities. The existence of the FMR can be explained by the interplay of infall of pristine gas and outflow of enriched material. The former effect is responsible for the dependence of metallicity with SFR and is the dominant effect at high-redshift, while the latter introduces the dependence on stellar mass and dominates at low redshift. The combination of these two effects, together with the Schmidt-Kennicutt law, explains the shape of the FMR and the role of mu_0.32. The small metallicity scatter around the FMR supports the smooth infall scenario of gas accretion in the local universe.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09389471aa1b0261f8afd278c6073f7f6b2d92a5

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Citations in the corpus

Evolution of the dust emission of massive galaxies up to z=4 and constraints on their dominant mode of star formation (2014, background): “…mass can also be connected to the gas metallicity Z and the dust mass (e.g., Leroy et al. 2011; Magdis et al. 2012a), Mdust ∝ Z(M , SFR) × Mmol, (2) where Z(M , SFR) is the gas metallicity which can be connected to M and SFR through the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR, Mannucci et al. 2010).”
A fundamental plane for field star-forming galaxies (2010, methodology): “Also, some authors have studied the inter-dependence of those variables (e.g. Hoopes et al. 2007; Ellison et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2010).”
Predicting dust extinction from the stellar mass of a galaxy (2010, background): “Finally, we note that very recently Mannucci et al. (2010) have proposed a ‘fundamental metallicity relation’, whereby galaxies define a tight surface in the three-dimensional space of mass, SFR and metallicity.”
Stellar black holes at the dawn of the universe (2011, background): “There is increasing evidence for an enhanced LGRB rate at z > 3 (Daigne et al. 2006; Kistler et al. 2008; Wanderman & Piran 2010; Qin et al. 2010), as expected from the increase in the specific star formation rate (SFR) with decreasing metallicity (Mannucci et al. 2010).”
Constraints on star formation driven galaxy winds from the mass–metallicity relation at z= 0 (2010, background): “Observationally, Mannucci et al. (2010) and Lara-López et al. (2010) have recntly shown thatZg has less scatter at fixedM⋆ andṀSFR than at just fixedM⋆ (i.e., the mass-metallicity relation); there is no evidence for evolution of this surface up toz ∼ 2.5.”
Mass-metallicity relation explored with CALIFA I. Is there a dependence on the star-formation rate? (2013, methodology): “This means that the SDSS fiber covers a range between∼0.3 and∼10 times the effective radii of galaxies at the redshift range covered by Mannucci et al. (2010) and Lara-López et al. (2010), depending both on their intrinsic properties and the involved cosmological distances.”
An analytic model for the evolution of the stellar, gas and metal content of galaxies (2011, result): “These trends are qualitatively consistent with observations (Ellison et al. 2008; Lara-López et al. 2010; Mannucci et al. 2010; Peeples & Shankar 2010).”
A fundamental relation between the metallicity, gas content, and stellar mass of local galaxies (2013, methodology): “This ‘fundamental metallicity relation’ (‘FMR’ hereafter) was found to exhibit remarkably little scatter and – more importantly – was found not to evolve out to at least z = 2.5 (Lara-López et al. 2010; Mannucci et al. 2010).”
SDSS-IV MaNGA : the impact of diffuse ionized gas on emission-line ratios, interpretation of diagnostic diagrams and gas metallicity measurements (2016, background): “…& van den Bergh, 1968; Lequeux et al. 1979; Garnett 2002; Tremonti et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2006) and at high redshift (Erb et al. 2006; Maiolino et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2009), and the massmetallicity-SFR fundamental plane (Mannucci et al. 2010; Yates et al. 2012; Andrews & Martini 2013).”
The mass–metallicity and the fundamental metallicity relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies (2019, methodology): “Following Mannucci et al. (2010), we search for the 2Dprojection of the FMR that reduce the metallicity scatter around the relation Z- µα, where µα = log(M?)”
The impact of gas inflows on star formation rates and metallicities in barred galaxies (2011, background): “Mannucci et al. (2010) and Lara-Lopez et al. (2010b) have even suggested a fundamental relation between SFR, mass and metallicity in star-forming galaxies that can be fitted with a plane.”
simba: Cosmological simulations with black hole growth and feedback (2019, methodology): “This has been noted observationally as the Fundamental Metallicity Relation (FMR; Mannucci et al. 2010; Lara-López et al. 2010).”
COMBINED CO AND DUST SCALING RELATIONS OF DEPLETION TIME AND MOLECULAR GAS FRACTIONS WITH COSMIC TIME, SPECIFIC STAR-FORMATION RATE, AND STELLAR MASS (2014, methodology): “We have checked what changes occur if the redshift dependent, mass-metallicity relation for estimating metallicities in equation (12) is replaced by the fundamental metallicity relation of Mannucci et al. (2010), which depends on both stellar mass and star formation rate (equation (12a)).”
Deriving model-based Te-consistent chemical abundances in ionized gaseous nebulae (2014, background): “The importance of these mechanisms should not be neglected as these are thought to be behind the empirical law found between metallicity and star formation rate (e.g. Lara-López et al. 2010; Mannucci et al. 2010; PérezMontero et al. 2013).”
THE HOST GALAXIES OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. A MASS–METALLICITY RELATION FOR LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURST HOST GALAXIES (2010, background): “An in-depth analysis of the Mannucci et al. (2010) relation and its potential application to the observed offset of our LGRB host sample is currently underway (Kewley et al. in prep).”
JWST Census for the Mass–Metallicity Star Formation Relations at z = 4–10 with Self-consistent Flux Calibration and Proper Metallicity Calibrators (2023, methodology): “Curti et al. ( 2023a ) also examine the MZ – star formation rate ( SFR ) relation, indicated to be a fundamental relation from z = 0 to z  2 – 3 ( Mannucci et al. 2010; Maiolino & Mannucci 2019; Sanders et al. 2021, and the references therein ) , suggesting that no clear evolution is seen from z =…”
The role of cold gas and environment on the stellar mass-metallicity relation of nearby galaxies (2012, result): “Two recent studies by Lara-López et al. (2010) and Mannucci et al. (2010) demonstrate that stellar mass and metallicity form a so-called fundamental plane or fundamental relation when combined with the SFR for field star-forming galaxies, these relationships suggest that part of the scatter in the…”
GRB hosts through cosmic time - VLT/X-Shooter emission-line spectroscopy of 96 γ-ray-burst-selected galaxies at 0.1 (2015, methodology): “This implies a metallicity between Z = 0.9 Z and Z = 1.4 Z in our oxygen-abundance scale (Mannucci et al. 2010).”
Star formation sustained by gas accretion (2014, background): “The relationship presents a significant scatter that has been recently found to be associated with the present SFR in the galaxy (Mannucci et al. 2010; Lara-López et al. 2010; Yates et al. 2012; Pérez-Montero et al. 2013; Andrews & Martini 2013; Zahid et al. 2013).”
The metallicity of the long GRB hosts and the fundamental metallicity relation of low-mass galaxies (2010, methodology): “Here we intend to use these galaxies to extend the measured FMR. Mannucci et al. (2010) have introduced the new quantity µα defined as a linear combination of stellar mass and SFR: µα = log(M∗) − α log(SFR) (1) and have demonstrated that, for α=0.32, all galaxies at z<2.5 show the same dependence…”