Constraints on galactic outflows from the metallicity-stellar mass-SFR relation of EAGLE simulation and SDSS galaxies

Abstract

Stellar feedback-driven outflows regulate the stellar formation and chemical enrichment of galaxies, yet the underlying dependence of mass outflow rate on galaxy properties remains largely unknown. We develop a simple yet comprehensive non-equilibrium chemical evolution model~(NE-CEM) to constrain the mass-loading factor $\eta$ of outflows using the metallicity-stellar mass-SFR relation observed by SDSS at $z=0$. Our NE-CEM predicts the chemical enrichment by explicitly tracking both the histories of star formation and mass-loading. After exploring the EAGLE simulation, we discover a compact yet flexible model that accurately describes the average star formation histories of galaxies. Applying a novel method of chemically measuring $\eta$ to EAGLE, we find $\eta$ can be parametrised by its dependence on stellar mass and specific SFR as $\log \eta \propto M_{\ast }^{\alpha }s{\mathrm{SFR}}^{\beta }$, with $\alpha =-0.12$ and $\beta =0.32$ in EAGLE. Our chemically-inferred $\eta$ agrees remarkably well with the kinematic measurements by Mitchell et al. After extensive tests with EAGLE, we apply an NE-CEM Bayesian analysis to the SDSS data, yielding a tight constraint of $\log (\eta /0.631)=0.731\pm 0.002\times (M_{\ast }/10^{9.5}{M}_{\odot }{)}^{-0.222\pm 0.004}(s\mathrm{SFR}/10^{-9.5}y{r}^{-1}{)}^{0.078\pm 0.003}$, in good agreement with the down-the-barrel measurements. Our best-fitting NE-CEM not only accurately describes the metallicity-stellar mass-SFR relation at $z=0$, but also successfully reproduce the so-called "fundamental metallicity relation'' at higher redshifts. Our results reveal that different galaxies form stars and enrich their gas in a non-equilibrium but strikingly coherent fashion across cosmic time.

22 pages, 17 figures, with key results in Fig. 13, 15, & 16. Comments welcome! Fixed a typo in the ηparameterization and relevant annotations in the figures. Conclusion unchanged

References in corpus (38)

• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• The EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation: calibration of subgrid physics and model variations
• Simba: Cosmological Simulations with Black Hole Growth and Feedback
• The Circumgalactic Medium
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• Chemical enrichment in cosmological, smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations
• The COS-Halos Survey: Physical Conditions and Baryonic Mass in the Low-Redshift Circumgalactic Medium
• The Origin of the Galaxy Mass-Metallicity Relation and Implications for Galactic Outflows
• Overview of the Instrumentation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Clues to the Origin of the Mass-Metallicity Relation: Dependence on Star Formation Rate and Galaxy Size
• The MOSDEF Survey: The Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity Relation from $z=0$ to $z\sim 3.3$
• The Metallicity of Galaxy Disks: Infall versus Outflow
• Superbubbles in the Multiphase ISM and the Loading of Galactic Winds
• First results from SMAUG: Characterization of Multiphase Galactic Outflows from a Suite of Local Star-Forming Galactic Disk Simulations
• Stochastic modelling of star-formation histories II: star-formation variability from molecular clouds and gas inflow
• The Diversity and Variability of Star Formation Histories in Models of Galaxy Evolution
• A Review of Recent Observations of Galactic Winds Driven by Star Formation
• Separate ways: The Mass-Metallicity Relation does not strongly correlate with Star Formation Rate in SDSS-IV MaNGA galaxies
• On the Elevation and Suppression of Star Formation within Galaxies
• The role of atomic hydrogen in regulating the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation
• Cold-Mode Accretion: Driving the Fundamental Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• Star Formation Stochasticity Measured from the Distribution of Burst Indicators
• Mass-Metallicity and Star Formation Rate in Galaxies: a complex relation tuned to stellar age
• The mass-metallicity relation at cosmic noon in overdense environments: first results from the MAMMOTH-Grism HST slitless spectroscopic survey
• The Impact of Black Hole Formation on Population Averaged Supernova Yields
• The MOSDEF Survey: The Mass-Metallicity relationship and the existence of the FMR at z~1.5
• Evolution of the Stellar Mass-Metallicity Relation. II. Constraints on Galactic Outflows from the Mg Abundances of Quiescent Galaxies
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at $z\sim 0.8$: Redshift Evolution and Parameter Dependency
• Intergalactic Dust Extinction in Hydrodynamic Cosmological Simulations
• DEVILS: Cosmic evolution of SED-derived metallicities and their connection to star-formation histories
• Coevolution of metallicity and star formation in galaxies to z=3.7: II. A theoretical model
• On the connection between galactic downsizing and the most fundamental galactic scaling relations
• The observed cosmic star formation rate density has an evolution which resembles a Γ(a, bt) distribution and can be described successfully by only 2 parameters
• The Role of Inner HI Mass in Regulating the Scatter of the Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Origin of the Galaxy Mass-Metallicity-Star-Formation Relation
• A stochastic model to reproduce the star-formation history of individual galaxies in hydrodynamic simulations
• Kinematics of MgII Absorbers from the Redshift-space Distortion Around Massive Quiescent Galaxies
• The Dual Role of Outflows in Quenching Satellites of Low-Mass Hosts: NGC 3109

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Environmental dependence of the mass-metallicity relation in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• The Jiao Tong University Spectroscopic Telescope Project
• A galactic outflow traced by its extended Mg II emission out to a $\sim 30$ kpc radius in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field with MUSE
• The origin of the galaxy size-stellar metallicity relation: A semi-analytical perspective
• Gamma Analytical Modeling Evolution (GAME) I: The physical implications of deriving the stellar mass functions from z=0 to z=8