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Register a new userSimilar star formation rate and metallicity evolution timescales drive the fundamental metallicity relation
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Paul Torrey
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The fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) is a postulated correlation between galaxy stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and gas-phase metallicity. At its core, this relation posits that offsets from the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) at a fixed stellar mass are correlated with galactic SFR. In this Letter, we quantify the timescale with which galactic SFRs and metallicities evolve using hydrodynamical simulations. We find that Illustris and IllustrisTNG predict that galaxy offsets from the star formation main sequence and MZR evolve over similar timescales, are often anti-correlated in their evolution, evolve with the halo dynamical time, and produce a pronounced FMR. In fact, for a FMR to exist, the metallicity and SFR must evolve in an anti-correlated sense which requires that they evolve with similar time variability. In contrast to Illustris and IllustrisTNG, we speculate that the SFR and metallicity evolution tracks may become decoupled in galaxy formation models dominated by globally-bursty SFR histories, which could weaken the FMR residual correlation strength. This opens the possibility of discriminating between bursty and non-bursty feedback models based on the strength and persistence of the FMR -- especially at high redshift.
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The fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) states that galaxies of the same stellar mass but larger star formation rate (SFR) tend to have smaller gas-phase metallicity (<Zg>). It is thought to be fundamental because it naturally arises from the stochastic feeding of star-formation from external metal-poor gas accretion, a process extremely elusive to observe but essential according the cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. In this letter, we show how the FMR emerges from the local anti-correlation between SFR surface density and Zg recently observed to exist in disk galaxies. We analytically derive the global FMR from the local law, and then show that both relations agree quantitatively when considering the star-forming galaxies of the MaNGA survey. Thus, understanding the FMR becomes equivalent to understanding the origin of the anti-correlation between SFR and metallicity followed by the set of star-forming regions of any typical galaxy. The correspondence between local and global laws is not specific of the FMR, so that a number of local relations should exist associated with known global relations.
We study the relations between gas-phase metallicity ($Z$), local stellar mass surface density ($Sigma_*$), and the local star formation surface density ($Sigma_{rm SFR}$) in a sample of 1120 star-forming galaxies from the MaNGA survey. At fixed $Sigma_{*}$ the local metallicity increases as decreasing of $Sigma_{rm SFR}$ or vice versa for metallicity calibrators of N2 and O3N2. Alternatively, at fixed $Sigma_{rm SFR}$ metallicity increases as increasing of $Sigma_{*}$, but at high mass region, the trend is flatter. However, the dependence of metallicity on $Sigma_{rm SFR}$ is nearly disappeared for N2O2 and N2S2 calibrators. We investigate the local metallicity against $Sigma_{rm SFR}$ with different metallicity calibrators, and find negative/positive correlations depending on the choice of the calibrator. We demonstrate that the O32 ratio (or ionization parameter) is probably dependent on star formation rate at fixed local stellar mass surface density. Additional, the shape of $Sigma_*$ -- $Z$ -- $Sigma_{rm SFR}$ (FMR) depends on metallicity calibrator and stellar mass range. Since the large discrepancy between the empirical fitting-based (N2, O3N2) to electronic temperature metallicity and the photoionization model-dependent (N2O2, N2S2) metallicity calibrations, we conclude that the selection of metallicity calibration affects the existence of FMR on $Sigma_{rm SFR}$.
We use $sim$83,000 star-forming galaxies at $0.04<z<0.3$ from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to study the so-called fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) and report on the disappearance of its anti-correlation between metallicity and star formation rate (SFR) when using the new metallicity indicator recently proposed by Dopita et al. In this calibration, metallicity is primarily sensitive to the emission line ratio [NII]$lambda$6584 / [SII]$lambdalambda$6717, 6731 that is insensitive to dilution by pristine infalling gas that may drive the FMR anti-correlation with SFR. Therefore, we conclude that the apparent disappearance of the FMR (using this new metallicity indicator) does not rule out its existence.
We present a new measurement of the gas-phase mass-metallicity relation (MZR), and its dependence on star formation rates (SFRs) at 1.3 < z < 2.3. Our sample comprises 1056 galaxies with a mean redshift of z = 1.9, identified from the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) grism spectroscopy in the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Survey (CANDELS) and the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey (WISP). This sample is four times larger than previous metallicity surveys at z ~ 2, and reaches an order of magnitude lower in stellar mass (10^8 M_sun). Using stacked spectra, we find that the MZR evolves by 0.3 dex relative to z ~ 0.1. Additionally, we identify a subset of 49 galaxies with high signal-to-noise (SNR) spectra and redshifts between 1.3 < z < 1.5, where H-alpha emission is observed along with [OIII] and [OII]. With accurate measurements of SFR in these objects, we confirm the existence of a mass-metallicity-SFR (M-Z-SFR) relation at high redshifts. These galaxies show systematic differences from the local M-Z-SFR relation, which vary depending on the adopted measurement of the local relation. However, it remains difficult to ascertain whether these differences could be due to redshift evolution, as the local M-Z-SFR relation is poorly constrained at the masses and SFRs of our sample. Lastly, we reproduced our sample selection in the IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulation, demonstrating that our line flux limit lowers the normalization of the simulated MZR by 0.2 dex. We show that the M-Z-SFR relation in IllustrisTNG has an SFR dependence that is too steep by a factor of around three.
Using cosmological galaxy simulations from the MaGICC project, we study the evolution of the stellar masses, star formation rates and gas phase abundances of star forming galaxies. We derive the stellar masses and star formation rates using observational relations based on spectral energy distributions by applying the new radiative transfer code GRASIL-3D to our simulated galaxies. The simulations match well the evolution of the stellar mass-halo mass relation, have a star forming main sequence that maintains a constant slope out to redshift z $sim$ 2, and populate projections of the stellar mass - star formation - metallicity plane, similar to observed star forming disc galaxies. We discuss small differences between these projections in observational data and in simulations, and the possible causes for the discrepancies. The light-weighted stellar masses are in good agreement with the simulation values, the differences between the two varying between 0.06 dex and 0.20 dex. We also find a good agreement between the star formation rate tracer and the true (time-averaged) simulation star formation rates. Regardless if we use mass- or light-weighted quantities, our simulations indicate that bursty star formation cycles can account for the scatter in the star forming main sequence.
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