The mass-metallicity and fundamental metallicity relations in non-AGN and AGN-host galaxies

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Li, Song-Lin, Grasha, Kathryn, Krumholz, Mark R., Wisnioski, Emily, Sutherland, Ralph S., Kewley, Lisa J., Chen, Yan-Mei, Li, Zefeng
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Li, Song-Lin
Grasha, Kathryn
Krumholz, Mark R.
Wisnioski, Emily
Sutherland, Ralph S.
Kewley, Lisa J.
Chen, Yan-Mei
Li, Zefeng
author_facet Li, Song-Lin
Grasha, Kathryn
Krumholz, Mark R.
Wisnioski, Emily
Sutherland, Ralph S.
Kewley, Lisa J.
Chen, Yan-Mei
Li, Zefeng
contents Galaxies' stellar masses, gas-phase oxygen abundances (metallicity), and star formation rates (SFRs) obey a series of empirical correlations, most notably the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) and fundamental metallicity relation (FZR), which relates oxygen abundance to a combination of stellar mass and SFR. However, due to the difficulty of measuring oxygen abundances and SFRs in galaxies that host powerful active galactic nuclei (AGN), to date it is unknown to what extent AGN-host galaxies also follow these correlations. In this work, we apply Bayesian methods to the MaNGA integral field spectrographic (IFS) survey that allow us to measure oxygen abundances and SFRs in AGN hosts, and use these measurements to explore how the MZR and FZR differ between galaxies that do and do not host AGN. We find similar MZRs at stellar masses above $10^{10.5} \mathrm{M}_\odot$, but that at lower stellar masses AGN hosts show up to $\sim 0.2$ dex higher oxygen abundances. The offset in the FZR is significantly smaller, suggesting that the larger deviation in the MZR is a result of AGN-host galaxies having systematically lower SFRs at fixed stellar mass. However, within the AGN-host sample there is little correlation between SFR and oxygen abundance. These findings support a scenario in which an AGN can halt efficient gas accretion, which drives non-AGN host galaxies to both higher SFR and lower oxygen abundance, resulting in the galaxy evolving off the star-forming main sequence (SFMS). As a consequence, as the SFR declines for an individual system its metallicity remains mostly unchanged.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_16069
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The mass-metallicity and fundamental metallicity relations in non-AGN and AGN-host galaxies
Li, Song-Lin
Grasha, Kathryn
Krumholz, Mark R.
Wisnioski, Emily
Sutherland, Ralph S.
Kewley, Lisa J.
Chen, Yan-Mei
Li, Zefeng
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Galaxies' stellar masses, gas-phase oxygen abundances (metallicity), and star formation rates (SFRs) obey a series of empirical correlations, most notably the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) and fundamental metallicity relation (FZR), which relates oxygen abundance to a combination of stellar mass and SFR. However, due to the difficulty of measuring oxygen abundances and SFRs in galaxies that host powerful active galactic nuclei (AGN), to date it is unknown to what extent AGN-host galaxies also follow these correlations. In this work, we apply Bayesian methods to the MaNGA integral field spectrographic (IFS) survey that allow us to measure oxygen abundances and SFRs in AGN hosts, and use these measurements to explore how the MZR and FZR differ between galaxies that do and do not host AGN. We find similar MZRs at stellar masses above $10^{10.5} \mathrm{M}_\odot$, but that at lower stellar masses AGN hosts show up to $\sim 0.2$ dex higher oxygen abundances. The offset in the FZR is significantly smaller, suggesting that the larger deviation in the MZR is a result of AGN-host galaxies having systematically lower SFRs at fixed stellar mass. However, within the AGN-host sample there is little correlation between SFR and oxygen abundance. These findings support a scenario in which an AGN can halt efficient gas accretion, which drives non-AGN host galaxies to both higher SFR and lower oxygen abundance, resulting in the galaxy evolving off the star-forming main sequence (SFMS). As a consequence, as the SFR declines for an individual system its metallicity remains mostly unchanged.
title The mass-metallicity and fundamental metallicity relations in non-AGN and AGN-host galaxies
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16069