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Register a new userA Relationship Between Stellar Metallicity Gradients and Galaxy Age in Dwarf Galaxies
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Added by
Francisco J. Mercado
Publication date
2020
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We explore the origin of stellar metallicity gradients in simulated and observed dwarf galaxies. We use FIRE-2 cosmological baryonic zoom-in simulations of 26 isolated galaxies as well as existing observational data for 10 Local Group dwarf galaxies. Our simulated galaxies have stellar masses between $10^{5.5}$ and $10^{8.6} msun$. Whilst gas-phase metallicty gradients are generally weak in our simulated galaxies, we find that stellar metallicity gradients are common, with central regions tending to be more metal-rich than the outer parts. The strength of the gradient is correlated with galaxy-wide median stellar age, such that galaxies with younger stellar populations have flatter gradients. Stellar metallicty gradients are set by two competing processes: (1) the steady puffing of old, metal-poor stars by feedback-driven potential fluctuations, and (2) the accretion of extended, metal-rich gas at late times, which fuels late-time metal-rich star formation. If recent star formation dominates, then extended, metal-rich star formation washes out pre-existing gradients from the puffing process. We use published results from ten Local Group dwarf galaxies to show that a similar relationship between age and stellar metallicity-gradient strength exists among real dwarfs. This suggests that observed stellar metallicity gradients may be driven largely by the baryon/feedback cycle rather than by external environmental effects.
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We studied the stellar populations of 40 early-type galaxies using medium resolution long-slit spectroscopy along their major axes (and along the minor axis for two of them), from 10^7 Msol to 10^12 Msol (-9.2 > M_B > -22.4 mag). All the studied galaxies lie on the mass-metallicity and age-mass relations. The transition type dwarfs deviate from the latter relation having younger mean age, and the low-mass dwarf spheroidals have older ages, marking a discontinuity in the relation, possibly due to selection effects. In all mass regimes, the mean metallicity gradients are approximately -0.2 and the mean age gradients +0.1 dex per decade of radius. The individual gradients are widely spread: $ -0.1 < abla_{rm Age} < 0.4 $ and $-0.54 < abla_{[{rm Fe/H}]} < +0.2 $. We do not find evidence for a correlation between the metallicity gradient and luminosity, velocity dispersion, central age or age gradient. Likewise, we do not find a correlation between the age gradient and any other parameter in bright early-type galaxies. In faint early-types with $M_B gtrsim -17$ mag, on the other hand, we find a correlation between the age gradient and luminosity: the age gradient becomes more positive for fainter galaxies. We conclude that various physical mechanisms can lead to similar gradients and that these gradients are robust against the environmental effects. In particular, the gradients observed in dwarfs galaxies certainly survived the transformation of the progenitors through tidal harassment or/and ram-pressure stripping. The diversity of metallicity gradients amongst dwarf elliptical galaxies may reflect a plurality of progenitors morphologies. The dwarfs with steep metallicity gradients could have originated from blue compact dwarfs and those with flat profiles from dwarf irregulars and late type spirals. (Abridged)
We present a study on the stellar age and metallicity distributions for 1105 galaxies using the STARLIGHT software on MaNGA integral field spectra. We derive age and metallicity gradients by fitting straight lines to the radial profiles, and explore their correlations with total stellar mass M*, NUV-r colour and environments, as identified by both the large scale structure (LSS) type and the local density. We find that the mean age and metallicity gradients are close to zero but slightly negative, which is consistent with the inside-out formation scenario. Within our sample, we find that both the age and metallicity gradients show weak or no correlation with either the LSS type or local density environment. In addition, we also study the environmental dependence of age and metallicity values at the effective radii. The age and metallicity values are highly correlated with M* and NUV-r and are also dependent on LSS type as well as local density. Low-mass galaxies tend to be younger and have lower metallicity in low-density environments while high-mass galaxies are less affected by environment.
We probe the stellar population age and metallicity distributions in nearby elliptical galaxies over the largest extension to date. Long-slit spectroscopy is made by using the spectrograph SCORPIO of the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciencies. The Lick indices H-beta, Mg b, Fe5270, and Fe5335 are calculated along the slit up to radii of 1.3 to 3r_e in 4 galaxies and up to 0.5r_e in the fifth one. The comparison with evolutionary synthesis models of simple stellar populations allows us to disentangle age and metallicity and to measure both. We have found that the mean stellar age is constant along the radius only in one galaxy out of 5. The other 4 galaxies demonstrate quite different behaviour of the mean stellar age: the outer parts are older than the centres in 3 cases and younger - in one case. The metallicity gradients cannot be approximated by a single power law over the full radial extension in 4 galaxies of 5. The inner metallicity gradients within 0.5r_e are all rather steep, steeper than -0.4 metallicity dex per radius dex, and are inconsistent with the origin of the elliptical galaxies by a major merger.
Radial age gradients hold the cumulative record of the multitude of physical processes driving the build-up of stellar populations and the ensuing star formation (SF) quenching process in galaxy bulges, therefore potentially sensitive discriminators between competing theoretical concepts on bulge formation and evolution. Based on spectral modeling of integral field spectroscopy data from the CALIFA survey, we derive mass- and light-weighted stellar age gradients ($ abla$(t,B)L,M) within the photometrically determined bulge radius (RB) of a representative sample of local face-on late-type galaxies that span 2.6 dex in stellar mass. Our analysis documents a trend for decreasing $ abla$(t,B)L,M with increasing M,T, with high-mass bulges predominantly showing negative age gradients and vice versa. The inversion from positive to negative $ abla$(t,B)L,M occurs at logM,T ~ 10, which roughly coincides with the transition from lower-mass bulges whose gas excitation is powered by SF to bulges classified as Composite, LINER or Seyfert. We discuss two limiting cases for the origin of radial age gradients in massive LTG bulges. The first assumes that the stellar age in the bulge is initially spatially uniform, thus the observed age gradients arise from an inside-out SF quenching (ioSFQ) front that is radially expanding with a mean velocity vq. In this case, the age gradients translate into a slow ioSFQ that lasts until z~2, suggesting mild negative feedback by SF or an AGN. If negative age gradients in massive bulges are not due to ioSFQ but primarily due to their inside-out formation process, then the standard hypothesis of quasi-monolithic bulge formation has to be discarded in favor of a scenario that involves gradual buildup of stellar mass over 2-3 Gyr through, e.g., inside-out SF and inward migration of SF clumps from the disk. In this case, rapid AGN-driven ioSFQ cannot be ruled out.
The formation and evolution of galaxies is imprinted on their stellar population radial gradients. Two recent articles present conflicting results concerning the mass dependence of the metallicity gradients for early-type dwarf galaxies. On one side, Spolaor et al. show a tight positive correlation between the total metallicity, Z/H and the mass. On the other side, in a distinct sample, we do not find any trend involving Fe/H (Koleva et al.). In order to investigate the origin of the discrepancy, we examine various factors that may affect the determination of the gradients: namely the sky subtraction and the signal-to-noise ratio. We conclude that our detection of gradients are well above the possible analysis biases. Then, we measured the Mg/Fe relative abundance profile and found moderate gradients. The derived Z/H gradients scatter around -0.4 dex/r_e. The two samples contain the same types of objects and the reason of the disagreement is still not understood. Based on observations made with ESO telescopes at La Silla Paranal observatory under program ID076.B-0196.
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