Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation
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....
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press (OUP)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132685 |
| _version_ | 1811082488379867136 |
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| author | Torrey, Paul A. Vogelsberger, Mark Hernquist, Lars McKinnon, Ryan Michael Marinacci, Federico Simcoe, Robert A Springel, Volker Pillepich, Annalisa Naiman, Jill Pakmor, Rüdiger Weinberger, Rainer Nelson, Dylan Genel, Shy |
| author2 | Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research |
| author_facet | Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Torrey, Paul A. Vogelsberger, Mark Hernquist, Lars McKinnon, Ryan Michael Marinacci, Federico Simcoe, Robert A Springel, Volker Pillepich, Annalisa Naiman, Jill Pakmor, Rüdiger Weinberger, Rainer Nelson, Dylan Genel, Shy |
| author_sort | Torrey, Paul A. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | 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 use hydrodynamical simulations to quantify the time-scales over which populations of galaxies oscillate about the average SFR and metallicity values at fixed stellarmass.We find that Illustris and IllustrisTNG predict that galaxy offsets from the star formation main sequence and MZR oscillate over similar time-scales, are often anticorrelated in their evolution, evolve with the halo dynamical time, and produce a pronounced FMR. Our models indicate that galaxies oscillate about equilibrium SFR and metallicity values - set by the galaxy's stellar mass - and that SFR and metallicity offsets evolve in an anticorrelated fashion. This anticorrelated variability of the metallicity and SFR offsets drives the existence of the FMR in our models. In contrast to Illustris and IllustrisTNG, we speculate that the SFR and metallicity evolution tracks may become decoupled in galaxy formation models dominated by feedback-driven 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:04:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/132685 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:04:12Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1326852022-09-27T23:53:41Z Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation Torrey, Paul A. Vogelsberger, Mark Hernquist, Lars McKinnon, Ryan Michael Marinacci, Federico Simcoe, Robert A Springel, Volker Pillepich, Annalisa Naiman, Jill Pakmor, Rüdiger Weinberger, Rainer Nelson, Dylan Genel, Shy Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics 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 use hydrodynamical simulations to quantify the time-scales over which populations of galaxies oscillate about the average SFR and metallicity values at fixed stellarmass.We find that Illustris and IllustrisTNG predict that galaxy offsets from the star formation main sequence and MZR oscillate over similar time-scales, are often anticorrelated in their evolution, evolve with the halo dynamical time, and produce a pronounced FMR. Our models indicate that galaxies oscillate about equilibrium SFR and metallicity values - set by the galaxy's stellar mass - and that SFR and metallicity offsets evolve in an anticorrelated fashion. This anticorrelated variability of the metallicity and SFR offsets drives the existence of the FMR in our models. In contrast to Illustris and IllustrisTNG, we speculate that the SFR and metallicity evolution tracks may become decoupled in galaxy formation models dominated by feedback-driven 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. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (HST-HF2-51341.001-A) United States. Department of Energy. Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Program (Grant DEFG02-97ER25308) 2021-10-01T18:24:18Z 2021-10-01T18:24:18Z 2018-03-03 2019-06-10T11:37:31Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1745-3925 1745-3933 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132685 Torrey, Paul, et al. “Similar Star Formation Rate and Metallicity Variability Time-Scales Drive the Fundamental Metallicity Relation.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 477, no. 1 (June 2018): L16–20. © 2018 The Authors en 10.1093/mnrasl/sly031 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Torrey, Paul A. Vogelsberger, Mark Hernquist, Lars McKinnon, Ryan Michael Marinacci, Federico Simcoe, Robert A Springel, Volker Pillepich, Annalisa Naiman, Jill Pakmor, Rüdiger Weinberger, Rainer Nelson, Dylan Genel, Shy Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title | Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title_full | Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title_fullStr | Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title_short | Similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time-scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| title_sort | similar star formation rate and metallicity variability time scales drive the fundamental metallicity relation |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132685 |
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