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

By Sara L. Ellison, David R. Patton, L. Simard, A. McConnachie. 2007

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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, rh) on the mass-metallicity relation. We find that galaxies with high SSFR or large rh for their stellar mass have systematically lower gas-phase metallicities (by up to 0.2 dex) than galaxies with low SSFR or small rh. We discuss possible origins for these dependencies, including galactic winds/outflows, abundance gradients, environment, and star formation rate efficiencies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/afcd45a063b0730d29f3443332019ec5da467b04

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Citations in the corpus

The mass–metallicity and the fundamental metallicity relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies (2019, background): “Ellison et al. (2008) first showed an anti-correlation between metallicity and specific star formation rate for galaxies at a fixed stellar mass. Mannucci et al. (2010) clearly observed a secondary dependence of the MZR on the SFR in a large sample of SDSS galaxies (then extended toward lower…”
THE MASS–METALLICITY RELATION WITH THE DIRECT METHOD ON STACKED SPECTRA OF SDSS GALAXIES (2012, background): “Later work by Ellison et al. (2008) discovered that galaxies with high SFRs (and larger half-light radii) are systematically offset to lower metallicities than more weakly star-forming galaxies at the same stellar mass. Mannucci et al. (2010) and Lara-López et al. (2010) studied this effect in a…”
Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients, and gas fractions at z ~ 3.4 (2013, background): “At a given stellar mass the metallicity decreases with increasing SFR (Kewley et al. 2006; Ellison et al. 2008; Mannucci et al. 2010; Lara Lopez et al. 2010; Cresci et al. 2012; Yates et al. 2012; Andrews & Martini 2013; Pérez-Montero et al. 2013).”
Mass-metallicity relation explored with CALIFA I. Is there a dependence on the star-formation rate? (2013, background): “…of pristine gas by inflows (Finlator & Davé 2008); 3) variations of the initial mass function with galaxy mass (Köppen et al. 2007); 4) selective star formation efficiency ordownsizing(Brooks et al. 2007; Ellison et al. 2008; Calura et al. 2009; Vale Asari et al. 2009); or a combination of them.”
The neutral hydrogen content of galaxies in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations (2013, unknown): “The vzw model appears to provide a better fit to the SDSS data, although metallicity measures are sufficiently uncertain that the ezw prediction cannot be ruled out (Ellison et al. 2008).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – V. Tracing changes in star formation rate and metallicity out to separations of 80 kpc (2012, methodology): “The SFRs and metallicities of our pairs are significantly offset from the control over significantly larger distance scales than has been previously seen (e.g., Lambas et al. 2003; Alonso et al. 2006; Woods & Geller 2007; Ellison et al. 2008b).”
Predicting dust extinction from the stellar mass of a galaxy (2010, background): “This may be due to variations in star formation efficiency between galaxies, as discussed by Ellison et al. (2008), where galaxies that have formed more stars in the past have a lower current SFR and higher metallicity.”
The impact of gas inflows on star formation rates and metallicities in barred galaxies (2011, background): “As shown by Ellison et al. (2008a), when galaxies exhibit enhanced star formation (as we believe the higher mass barred galaxies do) the luminosity–metallicity relation can be affected by changes in both metallicity and luminosity.”
Galaxy Evolution in Cosmological Simulations with Outflows II: Metallicities and Gas Fractions (2011, background): “Moreover, departures from the mean relation are strongly correlated with other galaxy properties (Ellison et al. 2008a; Cooper et al. 2008; Peeples, Pogge, & Stanek 2009; Lara-López et al. 2010; Mannucci et al. 2010).”
GAS REGULATION OF GALAXIES: THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMIC SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE, THE METALLICITY–MASS–STAR-FORMATION RATE RELATION, AND THE STELLAR CONTENT OF HALOS (2013, background): “Fitting the observed Z(mstar,SFR) and Z(mstar) relations As noted in the Introduction, Ellison et al (2008), Mannucci et al (2010, M+10), Lara-Lopez et al. (2010) and most recently Andrews et al (2012), have all drawn attention to evidence that the SFR of galaxies may act as a second parameter in…”
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).”
Ionization state of inter-stellar medium in galaxies: evolution, SFR-M * -Z dependence, and ionizing photon escape (2013, background): “Z relation depends on star formation rate (SFR), which is initially suggested by Ellison et al. (2008), and propose the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) that forms a single plane in the stellar-mass, metallicity, and SFR space.”
A fundamental plane for field star-forming galaxies (2010, background): “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).”
LSD: Lyman-break galaxies Stellar populations and Dynamics – I. Mass, metallicity and gas at z∼ 3.1 (2009, background): “At a given time, lower mass galaxies have formed a smaller fraction of their stars, therefore, are expected to show lower metallicities (Ellison et al. 2008).”
THE UNIVERSAL RELATION OF GALACTIC CHEMICAL EVOLUTION: THE ORIGIN OF THE MASS–METALLICITY RELATION (2014, background): “Ellison et al. (2008) first showed an anti-correlation between metallicity and specific star formation rate for galaxies at a fixed stellar mass.”
Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies (2009, background): “Equal mass mergers show the clearest signatures (Li et al. 2008; Ellison et al. 2008).”
GALAXY PAIRS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. I. STAR FORMATION, ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS FRACTION, AND THE LUMINOSITY/MASS–METALLICITY RELATION (2008, background): “However, in the control sample of non-paired galaxies used by Ellison et al. (2008) there is a shift toward lower metallicities for larger radii.”
On the galaxy stellar mass function, the mass-metallicity relation, and the implied baryonic mass function (2008, background): “Z relation (see also Brooks et al. 2007; Ellison et al. 2008; Mouhcine et al. 2008; Tassis, Kravtsov & Gnedin 2008).”