The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation

Details The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation

2008-05-02

arxiv.org/abs/0805.0308v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Submitted to MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13714.x

Using a sample of 57,377 star-forming galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we study the relationship between gas-phase oxygen abundance and environment in the local Universe. We find that there is a strong relationship between metallicity and environment such that more metal-rich galaxies favor regions of higher overdensity. Furthermore, this metallicity-density relation is comparable in strength to the color-density relation along the blue cloud. After removing the mean dependence of environment on color and luminosity, we find a significant residual trend between metallicity and environment that is largely driven by galaxies in high-density regions, such as groups and clusters. We discuss the potential source of this relationship between metallicity and local galaxy density in the context of feedback models, with special attention paid to quantifying the impact of environment on the scatter in the mass-metallicity relation. We find that environment is a non-negligible source of scatter in this fundamental relation, with > 15% of the measured scatter correlated with environment.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-512343