Why do high-redshift galaxies show diverse gas-phase metallicity gradients?
Xiangcheng Ma,Philip F. Hopkins,Robert Feldmann,Robert Feldmann,Paul Torrey,Paul Torrey,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Dušan Kereš +7 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, a suite of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments project were used to understand the observed diversity of kinematic properties and metallicity gradients in high-redshift galaxies.Abstract:
Recent spatially resolved observations of galaxies at z ∼ 0.6–3 reveal that high-redshift galaxies show complex kinematics and a broad distribution of gas-phase metallicity gradients. To understand these results, we use a suite of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments project, which include physically motivated models of the multiphase interstellar medium, star formation and stellar feedback. Our simulations reproduce the observed diversity of kinematic properties and metallicity gradients, broadly consistent with observations at z ∼ 0–3. Strong negative metallicity gradients only appear in galaxies with a rotating disc, but not all rotationally supported galaxies have significant gradients. Strongly perturbed galaxies with little rotation always have flat gradients. The kinematic properties and metallicity gradient of a high-redshift galaxy can vary significantly on short time-scales, associated with starburst episodes. Feedback from a starburst can destroy the gas disc, drive strong outflows and flatten a pre-existing negative metallicity gradient. The time variability of a single galaxy is statistically similar to the entire simulated sample, indicating that the observed metallicity gradients in high-redshift galaxies reflect the instantaneous state of the galaxy rather than the accretion and growth history on cosmological time-scales. We find weak dependence of metallicity gradient on stellar mass and specific star formation rate (sSFR). Low-mass galaxies and galaxies with high sSFR tend to have flat gradients, likely due to the fact that feedback is more efficient in these galaxies. We argue that it is important to resolve feedback on small scales in order to produce the diverse metallicity gradients observed.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
FIRE-2 simulations: physics versus numerics in galaxy formation
Philip F. Hopkins,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Dušan Kereš,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Eliot Quataert,Michael Boylan-Kolchin,Norman Murray,Christopher C. Hayward,Shea Garrison-Kimmel,Cameron Hummels,Robert Feldmann,Robert Feldmann,Paul Torrey,Xiangcheng Ma,Daniel Anglés-Alcázar,Kung-Yi Su,Matthew E. Orr,Denise Schmitz,Ivanna Escala,Robyn E. Sanderson,Michael Y. Grudić,Zachary Hafen,Ji-hoon Kim,Alex Fitts,James S. Bullock,Coral Wheeler,T. K. Chan,Oliver D. Elbert,Desika Narayanan +30 more
TL;DR: The Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project explores feedback in cosmological galaxy formation simulations as mentioned in this paper, which has been used to explore new physics (e.g. magnetic fields).
Journal ArticleDOI
De re metallica: the cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the methods used to constrain the chemical enrichment in galaxies and their environment, and discuss the observed scaling relations between metallicity and galaxy properties, the observed relative chemical abundances, how the chemical elements are distributed within galaxies, and how these properties evolve across the cosmic epochs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Black holes on FIRE: stellar feedback limits early feeding of galactic nuclei
Daniel Anglés-Alcázar,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Eliot Quataert,Philip F. Hopkins,Robert Feldmann,Paul Torrey,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Dušan Kereš +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce massive black holes (BHs) in the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project and perform high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of quasar-mass haloes [Mhalo(z = 2) ≈ 1012.5
Journal ArticleDOI
The structure and dynamical evolution of the stellar disc of a simulated Milky Way-mass galaxy
Xiangcheng Ma,Philip F. Hopkins,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Evan N. Kirby,Daniel Anglés-Alcázar,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Dušan Kereš,Eliot Quataert +9 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied the structure, age and metallicity gradients, and dynamical evolution using a cosmological zoom-in simulation of a Milky Way-mass galaxy from the Feedback in Realistic Environments project.
Journal ArticleDOI
Be it therefore resolved: Cosmological simulations of dwarf galaxies with 30 solar mass resolution
Coral Wheeler,Philip F. Hopkins,Andrew B. Pace,Shea Garrison-Kimmel,Michael Boylan-Kolchin,Andrew Wetzel,James S. Bullock,Dušan Kereš,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Eliot Quataert +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a suite of extremely high-resolution cosmological Feedback in Realistic Environments simulations of dwarf galaxies (Mhalo ≲ 1010 M☉), run to z = 0 with 30M☉ resolution, sufficient (for the first time) to resolve the internal structure of individual supernovae remnants within the cooling radius.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The Origin of the Mass-Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-forming Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Christy Tremonti,Christy Tremonti,Timothy M. Heckman,Guinevere Kauffmann,Jarle Brinchmann,Stephane Charlot,Simon D. M. White,Mark Seibert,Mark Seibert,Eric W. Peng,Eric W. Peng,David J. Schlegel,Alan Uomoto,Alan Uomoto,Masataka Fukugita,Jon Brinkmann +15 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation between stellar mass and gas-phase metallicity was studied using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging and spectroscopy of ~53,000 star-forming galaxies at z = 0.1.
Journal ArticleDOI
Statistical Properties of X-Ray Clusters: Analytic and Numerical Comparisons
TL;DR: The authors compare the results of Eulerian hydrodynamic simulations of cluster formation against virial scaling relations between four bulk quantities: the cluster mass, the dark matter velocity dispersion, the gas temperature, and the cluster luminosity.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Initial Mass Function of Stars: Evidence for Uniformity in Variable Systems
TL;DR: Combining IMF estimates for different populations in which the stars can be observed individually unveils an extraordinary uniformity of the IMF, which appears to hold for populations including present-day star formation in small molecular clouds.
Journal ArticleDOI
Statistical Properties of X-ray Clusters: Analytic and Numerical Comparisons
TL;DR: The authors compare the results of Eulerian hydrodynamic simulations of cluster formation against virial scaling relations between four bulk quantities: the cluster mass, the dark matter velocity dispersion, the gas temperature and the cluster luminosity.
Journal ArticleDOI
H II regions and the abundance properties of spiral galaxies
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the relationship between the characteristic oxygen abundance, the radial abundance gradient, and the macroscopic properties of spiral galaxies by examining the properties of individual H II regions within those galaxies.
Related Papers (5)
FIRE-2 simulations: physics versus numerics in galaxy formation
Philip F. Hopkins,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Andrew Wetzel,Dušan Kereš,Claude André Faucher-Giguère,Eliot Quataert,Michael Boylan-Kolchin,Norman Murray,Christopher C. Hayward,Shea Garrison-Kimmel,Cameron Hummels,Robert Feldmann,Robert Feldmann,Paul Torrey,Xiangcheng Ma,Daniel Anglés-Alcázar,Kung-Yi Su,Matthew E. Orr,Denise Schmitz,Ivanna Escala,Robyn E. Sanderson,Michael Y. Grudić,Zachary Hafen,Ji-hoon Kim,Alex Fitts,James S. Bullock,Coral Wheeler,T. K. Chan,Oliver D. Elbert,Desika Narayanan +30 more