Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-31-2021
Department
Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
We analyse the metallicity histories of ∼4500 galaxies from the GAMA survey at z < 0.06 modelled by the SED-fitting code PROSPECT using an evolving metallicity implementation. These metallicity histories, in combination with the associated star formation histories, allow us to analyse the inferred gas-phase mass–metallicity relation. Furthermore, we extract the mass– metallicity relation at a sequence of epochs in cosmic history, to track the evolving mass–metallicity relation with time. Through comparison with observations of gas-phase metallicity over a large range of redshifts, we show that, remarkably, our forensic SED analysis has produced an evolving mass–metallicity relationship that is consistent with observations at all epochs. We additionally analyse the three-dimensional mass–metallicity–SFR space, showing that galaxies occupy a clearly defined plane. This plane is shown to be subtly evolving, displaying an increased tilt with time caused by general enrichment, and also the slowing down of star formation with cosmic time. This evolution is most apparent at lookback times greater than 7 Gyr. The trends in metallicity recovered in this work highlight that the evolving metallicity implementation used within the SED-fitting code PROSPECT produces reasonable metallicity results over the history of a galaxy. This is expected to provide a significant improvement to the accuracy of the SED-fitting outputs.
Original Publication Information
Sabine Bellstedt, Aaron S G Robotham, Simon P Driver, Jessica E Thorne, Luke J M Davies, Benne W Holwerda, Andrew M Hopkins, Maritza A Lara-Lopez, Ángel R López-Sánchez, Steven Phillipps, Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA): the inferred mass–metallicity relation from z = 0 to 3.5 via forensic SED fitting, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 503, Issue 3, May 2021, Pages 3309–3325.
ThinkIR Citation
Bellstedt, Sabine; Robotham, Aaron S G; Driver, Simon P.; Thorne, Jessica E.; Davies, Luke J M; Holwerda, Benne; Hopkins, Andrew M.; Lara-Lopez, Maritza A.; López-Sánchez, Ángel R.; and Phillipps, Steven, "Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA): the inferred mass–metallicity relation from z = 0 to 3.5 via forensic SED fitting" (2021). Faculty and Staff Scholarship. 835.
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty/835
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stab550
ORCID
0000-0002-4884-6756
Comments
C 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society