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Metallicity inhomogeneities in local star-forming galaxies as a sign of recent metal-poor gas accretion

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Date
01/03/2014
Author
Sánchez Almeida, J.
Morales-Luis, A.B.
Muñoz-Tuñón, C.
Elmegreen, D.M.
Elmegreen, B.G.
Mendez Abreu, Jairo
Funder
European Research Council
Grant ID
ERC-2012-StG-20111012
Keywords
Galaxies: abundances
Galaxies: dwarf
Galaxies: evolution
Galaxies: formation
Galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
Galaxies: structure
QB Astronomy
QC Physics
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Abstract
We measure the oxygen metallicity of the ionized gas along the major axis of seven dwarf star-forming galaxies. Two of them, SDSSJ1647+21 and SDSSJ2238+14, show ≃0.5 dex metallicity decrements in inner regions with enhanced star formation activity. This behavior is similar to the metallicity drop observed in a number of local tadpole galaxies by Sánchez Almeida et al., and was interpreted as showing early stages of assembling in disk galaxies, with the star formation sustained by external metal-poor gas accretion. The agreement with tadpoles has several implications. (1) It proves that galaxies other than the local tadpoles present the same unusual metallicity pattern. (2) Our metallicity inhomogeneities were inferred using the direct method, thus discarding systematic errors usually attributed to other methods. (3) Taken together with the tadpole data, our findings suggest a threshold around one-tenth the solar value for the metallicity drops to show up. Although galaxies with clear metallicity drops are rare, the physical mechanism responsible for them may sustain a significant part of the star formation activity in the local universe. We argue that the star formation dependence of the mass-metallicity relationship, as well as other general properties followed by most local disk galaxies, is naturally interpreted as side effects of pristine gas infall. Alternatives to the metal-poor gas accretion are examined as well.
Citation
Sánchez Almeida , J , Morales-Luis , A B , Muñoz-Tuñón , C , Elmegreen , D M , Elmegreen , B G & Mendez Abreu , J 2014 , ' Metallicity inhomogeneities in local star-forming galaxies as a sign of recent metal-poor gas accretion ' , Astrophysical Journal , vol. 783 , no. 1 . https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/783/1/45
Publication
Astrophysical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/783/1/45
ISSN
0004-637X
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Description
This work was partly funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science, project AYA 2010-21887-C04-04. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild).
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5307

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