No Arabic abstract
Using a representative sample of 14 star-forming dwarf galaxies in the local Universe, we show the existence of a spaxel-to-spaxel anti-correlation between the index N2 (log([NII]6583/Halpha)) and the Halpha flux. These two quantities are commonly employed as proxies for gas-phase metallicity and star formation rate (SFR), respectively. Thus, the observed N2 to Halpha relation may reflect the existence of an anti-correlation between the metallicity of the gas forming stars and the SFR it induces. Such an anti-correlation is to be expected if variable external metal-poor gas fuels the star-formation process. Alternatively, it can result from the contamination of the star-forming gas by stellar winds and SNe, provided that intense outflows drive most of the metals out of the star-forming regions. We also explore the possibility that the observed anti-correlation is due to variations in the physical conditions of the emitting gas, other than metallicity. Using alternative methods to compute metallicity, as well as previous observations of HII regions and photoionization models, we conclude that this possibility is unlikely. The radial gradient of metallicity characterizing disk galaxies does not produce the correlation either.
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.
Using a sample of dwarf galaxies observed using the VIMOS IFU on the VLT, we investigate the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) as a function of star formation rate (FMR$_{text{SFR}}$) as well as HI-gas mass (FMR$_{text{HI}}$). We combine our IFU data with a subsample of galaxies from the ALFALFA HI survey crossmatched to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to study the FMR$_{text{SFR}}$ and FMR$_{text{HI}}$ across the stellar mass range 10$^{6.6}$ to 10$^{8.8}$ M$_odot$, with metallicities as low as 12+log(O/H) = 7.67. We find the 1$sigma$ mean scatter in the MZR to be 0.05 dex. The 1$sigma$ mean scatter in the FMR$_{text{SFR}}$ (0.02 dex) is significantly lower than that of the MZR. The FMR$_{text{SFR}}$ is not consistent between the IFU observed galaxies and the ALFALFA/SDSS galaxies for SFRs lower than 10$^{-2.4}$ M$_odot$ yr$^{-1}$, however this could be the result of limitations of our measurements in that regime. The lowest mean scatter (0.01 dex) is found in the FMR$_{text{HI}}$. We also find that the FMR$_{text{HI}}$ is consistent between the IFU observed dwarf galaxies and the ALFALFA/SDSS crossmatched sample. We introduce the fundamental metallicity luminosity counterpart to the FMR, again characterized in terms of SFR (FML$_{text{SFR}}$) and HI-gas mass (FML$_{text{HI}}$). We find that the FML$_{text{HI}}$ relation is consistent between the IFU observed dwarf galaxy sample and the larger ALFALFA/SDSS sample. However the 1$sigma$ scatter for the FML$_{text{HI}}$ relation is not improved over the FMR$_{text{HI}}$ scenario. This leads us to conclude that the FMR$_{text{HI}}$ is the best candidate for a physically motivated fundamental metallicity relation.
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 $Sigma_{rm SFR}$.
Recent hydrodynamical simulations predict that stellar feedback in intermediate mass galaxies (IMGs) can drive strong fluctuations in structure (e.g., half-light radius, $R_e$). This process operates on timescales of only a few hundred Myr and persists even at late cosmic times. One prediction of this quasi-periodic, galactic-scale breathing is an $anti$-correlation between star formation rate (SFR) and half-light radius as central gas overdensities lead to starbursts whose feedback drags stars to larger radii while star formation dwindles. We test this prediction with a sample of 322 $isolated$ IMGs with stellar masses of $10^{9.0} leq M/M_{odot} leq 10^{9.5}$ at $0.3<z<0.4$ in the HST $I_{814}$ COSMOS footprint. We find that IMGs with higher specific SFRs (SSFR $>10^{-10}$ yr$^{-1}$) are the most extended with median sizes of $R_e sim 3-3.4$ kpc and are mostly disk-dominated systems. In contrast, IMGs with lower SSFRs ($<10^{-10}$ yr$^{-1}$) are a factor of $sim 2-3$ more compact with median sizes of $R_e sim 0.9-1.6$ kpc and have more significant bulge contributions to their light. These observed trends are opposite the predictions for stellar feedback that operate via the breathing process described above. We discuss various paths to reconcile the observations and simulations, all of which likely require a different implementation of stellar feedback in IMGs that drastically changes their predicted formation history.
We present a measurement of the average supermassive black hole accretion rate (BHAR) as a function of star formation rate (SFR) for galaxies in the redshift range 0.25<z<0.8. We study a sample of 1,767 far-IR selected star-forming galaxies in the 9 deg^2 Bootes multiwavelength survey field. The SFR is estimated using 250 micron observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, for which the contribution from the AGN is minimal. In this sample, 121 AGNs are directly identified using X-ray or mid-IR selection criteria. We combined these detected AGNs and an X-ray stacking analysis for undetected sources to study the average BHAR for all of the star-forming galaxies in our sample. We find an almost linear relation between the average BHAR (in M_sun/year) and the SFR (in M_sun/year) for galaxies across a wide SFR range 0.85<log SFR<2.56 : log BHAR=(-3.72pm0.52)+(1.05pm0.33) log SFR. This global correlation between SFR and average BHAR is consistent with a simple picture in which SFR and AGN activity are tightly linked over galaxy evolution timescales.