The origin of dispersion in DLA metallicities

Abstract

Recent chemical abundance measurements of damped Ly-alpha absorbers (DLAs) revealed an intrinsic scatter in their metallicity of ~0.5 dex out to z~5. In order to explore the origin of this scatter, we build a semi-analytic model which traces the chemical evolution of the interstellar matter in small regions of the Universe with different mean density, from over- to underdense regions. We show that the different histories of structure formation in these regions, namely halo abundance, mass and stellar content, is reflected in the chemical properties of the protogalaxies, and in particular of DLAs. We calculate mean metallicity-redshift relations and show that the metallicity dispersion arising from this environmental effect amounts to ~0.25 dex and is an important contributor to the observed overall intrinsic scatter.

6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (8)

• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems out to z~5
• Generating Dark Matter Halo Merger Trees
• Velocity-Metallicity Correlation for high-z DLA Galaxies: Evidence for a Mass-Metallicity Relation?
• Damped Lyman Alpha Systems in Galaxy Formation Simulations
• Damped Lyman-alpha absorbers as a probe of stellar feedback
• The Impact of Star Formation and Gamma-Ray Burst Rates at High Redshift on Cosmic Chemical Evolution and Reionization
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics: IV. Oxygen
• Verifying the mass-metallicity relation in damped Lyman-alpha selected galaxies at 0.1<z<3.2

Cited by in corpus (25)

• The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two 40-100 Msun stars
• GW150914: Implications for the stochastic gravitational wave background from binary black holes
• The Effect of Pair-Instability Mass Loss on Black Hole Mergers
• Digging deeper: Observing primordial gravitational waves below the binary black hole produced stochastic background
• A Triple Origin for the Heavy and Low-Spin Binary Black Holes Detected by LIGO/Virgo
• Advanced LIGO Constraints on Neutron Star Mergers and R-Process Sites
• The cosmic evolution of dust-corrected metallicity in the neutral gas
• When and where did GW150914 form?
• Impact of inter-correlated initial binary parameters on double black hole and neutron star mergers
• Cosmic Neutron Star Merger Rate and Gravitational Waves constrained by the R Process Nucleosynthesis
• Black hole-neutron star mergers are unlikely multi-messenger sources
• The effects of host galaxy properties on merging compact binaries detectable by LIGO
• The connection between merging double compact objects and the Ultraluminous X-ray Sources
• Impact of natal kicks on merger rates and spin-orbit misalignments of black hole -- neutron star mergers
• Cosmological evolution of the Nitrogen abundance
• Cosmic metal density evolution in neutral gas: insights from observations and cosmological simulations
• On the Mass Ratio Distribution of Black Hole Mergers in Triple Systems
• Evolution of dispersion in the cosmic deuterium abundance
• The Cosmic Evolution of Magnesium Isotopes
• Gravitational-Wave Background from Binary Mergers and Metallicity Evolution of Galaxies
• Binary black hole mergers from merged stars in the Galactic field
• Binary black hole mergers from young massive and open clusters: comparison to GWTC-2 gravitational wave data
• High-redshift Damped Ly-alpha Absorbing Galaxy Model Reproducing the N(HI)-Z Distribution
• Potential contributions of Pop III and intermediate-mass Pop II stars to cosmic chemical enrichment
• Merger rates of intermediate-mass black hole binaries in nuclear star clusters