The ages and metallicities of galaxies in the local universe

By A. Gallazzi, S. Charlot, J. Brinchmann, Simon D. M. White, C. A. T. Mpa, Iap, Universitade do Porto, S. Observatory. 2005

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We derive stellar metallicities, light-weighted ages and stellar masses for a magnitude-limited sample of 175 128 galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Two (SDSS DR2). We compute the median-likelihood estimates of these parameters using a large library of model spectra at medium‐high resolution, covering a comprehensive range of star formation histories. The constraints we derive are set by the simultaneous fit of five spectral absorption features, which are well reproduced by our population synthesis models. By design, these constraints depend only weakly on the α/Fe element abundance ratio. Our sample includes galaxies of all types spanning the full range in star formation activity, from dormant early-type to actively star-forming galaxies. By analysing a subsample of 44 254 high-quality spectra, we show that, in the mean, galaxies follow a sequence of increasing stellar metallicity, age and stellar mass at increasing 4000-A break strength. For galaxies of intermediate mass, stronger Balmer absorption at fixed 4000-A break strength is associated with higher metallicity and younger age. We investigate how stellar metallicity and age depend on total galaxy stellar mass. Low-mass galaxies are typically young and metal-poor, massive galaxies old and metalrich, with a rapid transition between these regimes over the stellar mass range 3 × 10 9 M ∗ 3 × 10 10 M� . Both high- and low-concentration galaxies follow these relations, but there is a large dispersion in stellar metallicity at fixed stellar mass, especially for low-concentration galaxies of intermediate mass. Despite the large scatter, the relation between stellar metallicity and stellar mass is similar to the correlation between gas-phase oxygen abundance and stellar mass for star-forming galaxies. This is confirmed by the good correlation between stellar metallicity and gas-phase oxygen abundance for galaxies with both measures. The substantial range in stellar metallicity at fixed gas-phase oxygen abundance suggests that gas ejection and/or accretion are important factors in galactic chemical evolution. Ke yw ords: galaxies: evolution ‐ galaxies: formation ‐ galaxies: stellar content.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cfcbdb8b846aef903aa43b7a4581c30864d6760e

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Citations in the corpus

The delay-time distribution of Type Ia supernovae from Sloan II (2012, background): “However, a further factor of 0.75 to 0.80 is required (R. Tojeiro, private communication) in order to make the VESPA galaxy masses match the mass estimates of the same galaxies based on pre-DR6 SDSS spectroscopic calibrations (Brinchman et al. 2004; Gallazzi et al. 2005).”
Population Synthesis in the Blue. IV. Accurate Model Predictions for Lick Indices and UBV Colors in Single Stellar Populations (2007, background): “…of the integrated light of galaxies, both nearby and at large distances, where early-type galaxies are often found to have similar mean ages and metallicities (e.g., Trager et al. 2000, Kelson et al. 2001, Caldwell et al. 2003, Denicoló et al. 2005a,b, Gallazzi et al. 2005, Schiavon et al. 2006).”
Empirical determination of the shape of dust attenuation curves in star-forming galaxies (2011, methodology): “Stellar mass (M∗): measured from the 5-band SDSS Petrosian photometry in units of solar mass using a Bayesian fit to a library of stochastic star formation histories similar to those used in Gallazzi et al. (2005) are publicly available7.”
Star formation sustained by gas accretion (2014, background): “5.1 The stellar mass-metallicity-SFR relationship Galaxies are known to follow a mass-metallicity relationship, where the larger the stellar mass the higher the metallicity (e.g., Skillman et al. 1989; Tremonti et al. 2004; Gallazzi et al. 2005).”
Galaxy Zoo: the dependence of morphology and colour on environment (2008, background): “However, this is comparable to the quoted uncertainties on the spectral measurements (Kauffmann et al. 2003) and the scatter and systematic differences between different spectral mass estimates (Gallazzi et al.2005).”
Erratum: Recovering galaxy stellar population properties from broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting (2012, background): “…a two-component template, such that a second burst at an arbitrary time is superimposed on an underlying exponentially declining star formation history (Papovich et al. 2001; Gallazzi et al. 2005; Salim et al. 2007; Pozzetti et al. 2007; Walcher et al. 2008; Muzzin et al. 2009; Noll et al. 2009).”
Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations (2013, methodology): “Gallazzi et al. (2005) provided an age-stellar mass relation for a magnitude-limited sample of SDSS galaxies, whereas Thomas et al. (2010) examined a sample of morphologically selected elliptical galaxies.”
The formation of disc galaxies in high-resolution moving-mesh cosmological simulations (2013, result): “It also has one of the smallest stellar masses among our set, making it in fact agree rather well with the observational determination of the age – stellar mass relation of late-type galaxies in the SDSS carried out by Gallazzi et al. (2005).”
On Extending the Mass-Metallicity Relation of Galaxies by 2.5 Decades in Stellar Mass (2006, background): “…the near-infrared (see, e.g., Kobulnicky & Zaritsky 1999; Kobulnicky et al. 2003; Liang et al. 2004; Kobulnicky & Kewley 2004; Shapley et al. 2004; Gallazzi et al. 2005; Hoyos et al. 2005; Maier et al. 2005; Savaglio et al. 2005; Shapley et al. 2005; Erb et al. 2006; Lamareille et al. 2006; Liang…”
Simulations of the galaxy population constrained by observations from z = 3 to the present day: implications for galactic winds and the fate of their ejecta (2012, methodology): “The star formation rate data are taken from SDSS-DR7 (Salim et al. 2007) while the luminosity-weighted ages are from SDSS-DR4 (Gallazzi et al. 2005).”
Red mergers and the assembly of massive elliptical galaxies: the fundamental plane and its projections (2006, background): “The lack of correlation between metallicity (Gallazzi et al. 2005) or metallicity gradients (Carollo, Danziger & Buson 1993) and galaxy mass for massive ellipticals, while both are positively correlated with galaxy mass for lower mass ellipticals, provides additional support for this E-mail:…”
Emission-line diagnostics of low-metallicity active galactic nuclei (2006, methodology): “8, Gallazzi et al. 2005).”
The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments (2014, background): “Indeed, while the mean relation from the CALIFA integral field survey is close to that of Gallazzi et al. (2005), the scatter is about a factor of two smaller (González Delgado et al. 2014).”
On the Collapsar Model of Long Gamma-Ray Bursts:Constraints from Cosmic Metallicity Evolution (2005, background): “The study of Gallazzi et al. (2005) derives stellar metallicities and gives in their Figure 6 the distribution of stellar metallicity in galaxies at low redshift.”
THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES (2010, neutral): “…these quantities correlate with the average epoch of formation of their stellar populations, as well as their average metalliticity, abundance ratios, and gas content (e.g., Treu et al. 2005; Thomas et al. 2005; Gallazzi et al. 2005; Jimenez et al. 2007; Pipino et al. 2009; Graves et al. 2009).”
The CALIFA survey across the Hubble sequence: Spatially resolved stellar population properties in galaxies (2015, background): “For instance, in Gallazzi et al. (2005) metallicities are averaged logarithmically, whereas Asari et al. (2007) work with arithmetic averages.”
The morgana model for the rise of galaxies and active nuclei (2006, result): “These metallicities are compared with the results of Nelan et al. (2005), relative to the cluster elliptical galaxies of the NOAO fundamental plane survey, and Gallazzi et al. (2005), relative to SDSS galaxies.”
The build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in galaxy clusters since z ~ 0.8 (2006, background): “…of red–sequence galaxies is expected as a natural consequence of the recently established mass-dependence of elliptical galaxy evolution both in clusters and in the field (Thomas et al. 2005; Gallazzi et al. 2005; van der Wel et al. 2005; Treu et al. 2005; Holden et al. 2005; Nelan et al. 2005).”