| Issue |
A&A
Volume 682, February 2024
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | L11 | |
| Number of page(s) | 8 | |
| Section | Letters to the Editor | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202348423 | |
| Published online | 09 February 2024 | |
Letter to the Editor
More fundamental than the fundamental metallicity relation
The effect of the stellar metallicity on the gas-phase mass-metallicity and gravitational potential-metallicity relations
1
Dpto. de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Facultad de Ciencias (Edificio Mecenas), Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
e-mail: lsanchezm@ugr.es
2
Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y computacional, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
3
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Astronomía, AP 106, Ensenada, 22800 BC, México
4
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
5
Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. Astrofísica, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
Received:
30
October
2023
Accepted:
29
January
2024
Context One of the most fundamental scaling relations in galaxies is observed between metallicity and stellar mass – the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) – although recently a stronger dependence of the gas-phase metallicity with the galactic gravitational potential (ΦZR) has been reported. Further dependences of metallicity on other galaxy properties have been revealed, with the star formation rate (SFR) being one of the most studied and debated secondary parameters in the relation (the so-called fundamental metallicity relation).
Aims. In this work we explore the dependence of the gas-phase metallicity residuals from the MZR and ΦZR on different galaxy properties in the search for the most fundamental scaling relation in galaxies.
Methods. We applied a random forest regressor algorithm on a sample of 3430 nearby star-forming galaxies from the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. Using this technique, we explored the effect of 147 additional parameters on the global oxygen abundance residuals obtained after subtracting the MZR. Alternatively, we followed a similar approach with the metallicity residuals from the ΦZR.
Results. The stellar metallicity of the galaxy is revealed as the secondary parameter in both the MZR and the ΦZR, ahead of the SFR. This parameter reduces the scatter in the relations ∼10 − 15%. We find the 3D relation between gravitational potential, gas metallicity, and stellar metallicity to be the most fundamental metallicity relation observed in galaxies.
Key words: techniques: imaging spectroscopy / galaxies: abundances / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: fundamental parameters
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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