A Local Leaky-box Model for the Local Stellar Surface Density - Gas Surface Density - Gas Phase Metallicity Relation

Abstract

We revisit the relation between the stellar surface density, the gas surface density, and the gas-phase metallicity of typical disk galaxies in the local Universe with the SDSS-IV/MaNGA survey, using the star formation rate surface density as an indicator for the gas surface density. We show that these three local parameters form a tight relationship, confirming previous works (e.g., by the PINGS and CALIFA surveys), but with a larger sample. We present a new local leaky-box model, assuming star formation history and chemical evolution is localized except for outflowing materials. We derive closed-form solutions for the evolution of stellar surface density, gas surface density and gas-phase metallicity, and show that these parameters form a tight relation independent of initial gas density and time. We show that, with canonical values of model parameters, this predicted relation match the observed one well. In addition, we briefly describe a pathway to improving the current semi-analytic models of galaxy formation by incorporating the local leaky-box model in the cosmological context, which can potentially explain simultaneously multiple properties of Milky Way-type disk galaxies, such as the size growth and the global stellar mass-gas metallicity relation.

9 pages, 4 figures. Accepted version to MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• The VANDELS survey: the stellar metallicities of star-forming galaxies at 2.5 < z < 5.0
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: What Shapes The Distribution Of Metals In Galaxies? Exploring The Roles Of The Local Gas Fraction And Escape Velocity
• Gas-phase Metallicity as a Diagnostic of the Drivers of Star-formation on Different Spatial Scales
• What determines the local metallicity of galaxies: global stellar mass, local stellar mass surface density or star formation rate?
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Evidence for enriched accretion onto satellite galaxies in dense environments
• Metallicity Distribution of Disk Stars and the Formation History of the Milky Way
• Gas metallicity distributions in SDSS-IV MaNGA galaxies: what drives gradients and local trends?
• The Properties of Massive Star-forming galaxies with Outside-in Assembly Mode
• Detection of the self-regulation of star formation in galaxy discs
• Measuring the physical imprints of gas flows in galaxies I: Accretion rate histories
• SDSS-IV/MaNGA: Can impulsive gaseous inflows explain steep oxygen abundance profiles \& anomalously-low-metallicity regions?