Mass-dependent chemical enrichment sequences of SDSS star-forming galaxies out to z~0.3 revealed by direct O & Ar abundances

Abstract

Individual stars in the Milky Way (MW) and its satellites have been shown to trace galaxy stellar mass dependent sequences in the $\alpha$-abundance ([$\alpha$/Fe]) vs metallicity ([Fe/H]) plane. Testing the universality of such sequences has been elusive as deep absorption-line spectra required for [$\alpha$/Fe] and [Fe/H] measurements beyond the local group are mostly limited to integrated light from nearby, relatively high-mass, early-type galaxies. However, analogous to [$\alpha$/Fe] vs [Fe/H] for stars, we now have log(O/Ar) vs 12+log(Ar/H) for the integrated nebular light of star-forming galaxies (SFGs). From Sloan-Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) observations of $\sim 3000$ SFGs out to z$\sim 0.3$, where we directly determined O & Ar abundances, we obtain for the first time the distribution of an ensemble of SFGs in the log(O/Ar) vs 12+log(Ar/H) plane. We show that higher (<M${}_{\ast }$>$\sim 2.6\times 10^9$M${}_{\odot }$) and lower mass (<M${}_{\ast }$>$\sim 1.7\times 10^7$M${}_{\odot }$) SFGs clearly trace distinct mass dependent sequences in this plane. Such sequences are consistent with expectations from galaxy chemical evolution (GCE) models that are driven primarily by the interplay of core-collapse and Type Ia supernovae.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS; 10 pages, 7 figures (+2 in appendix), 1 table

References in corpus (40)

• The Origin of the Mass--Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-Forming Galaxies in the SDSS
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• Star Formation in AEGIS Field Galaxies since z=1.1 : The Dominance of Gradually Declining Star Formation, and the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• The epochs of early-type galaxy formation as a function of environment
• The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
• Star Formation Histories, Abundances and Kinematics of Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Group
• Exploring the Milky Way stellar disk. A detailed elemental abundance study of 714 F and G dwarf stars in the Solar neighbourhood
• A fundamental relation between mass, SFR and metallicity in local and high redshift galaxies
• De Re Metallica: The cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies
• The Stellar Population Histories of Local Early-Type Galaxies. I. Population Parameters
• The chemical composition of metal-poor emission-line galaxies in the Data Release 3 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Metallicity Distribution Functions and the Chemical Structure of the Milky Way Disk
• Improved Estimates of the Milky Way's Stellar Mass and Star Formation Rate from Hierarchical Bayesian Meta-Analysis
• An Objective Definition for the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Mass-Metallicity and the Fundamental Metallicity Relation revisited on a fully Te-based abundance scale for galaxies
• Environment and self-regulation in galaxy formation
• The long bar as seen by the VVV survey: I. Colour-magnitude diagrams
• Stellar mass map and dark matter distribution in M31
• Simulations of Cosmic Chemical Enrichment
• Multi-Element Abundance Measurements from Medium-Resolution Spectra. IV. Alpha Element Distributions in Milky Way Dwarf Satellite Galaxies
• Chemical abundances in LMC stellar populations I. The Inner disk sample Based on observations collected at the VLT UT2 telescope
• Abundances in Spiral Galaxies: Evidence for Primary Nitrogen Production
• The main sequence of star forming galaxies I. The local relation and its bending
• Stellar Absorption Line Analysis of Local Star-Forming Galaxies: The Relation Between Stellar Mass, Metallicity, Dust Attenuation and Star Formation Rate
• Effects of episodic gas infall on the chemical abundances in galaxies
• CHAOS VI: Direct Abundances in NGC 2403
• The Fornax3D project: Tracing the assembly history of the cluster from the kinematic and line-strength maps
• Understanding and reducing statistical uncertainties in nebular abundance determinations
• Ionization correction factors and dust depletion patterns in giant HII regions
• On the electron temperatures in high-metallicity HII regions
• Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen abundance gradients in M101 and M31
• The survey of planetary nebulae in Andromeda (M 31) V. Chemical enrichment of the thin and thicker discs of Andromeda. Oxygen to argon abundance ratios for planetary nebulae and H II regions
• The survey of planetary nebulae in Andromeda (M31). IV. Radial oxygen and argon abundance gradients of the thin and thicker disc
• The Prime Focus Spectrograph Galaxy Evolution Survey
• The survey of planetary nebulae in Andromeda (M31) VI. Kinematics of M31 inner-halo substructures and comparison with major-merger simulation predictions
• The hELENa project - II. Abundance distribution trends of early-type galaxies: from dwarfs to giants
• On the [$\alpha$/Fe]-[Fe/H] relations in early-type galaxies
• The origin of extreme N-emitters in star-forming galaxies at z$<$0.5 with DESI DR1
• MARTA: Temperature-temperature relationships and strong-line metallicity calibrations from multiple auroral-line detections at cosmic noon
• Weighing Andromeda: Mass estimates of the M~31 galaxy