Galaxy Mergers and the Mass-Metallicity Relation: Evidence for Nuclear Metal Dilution and Flattened Gradients from Numerical Simulations

TL;DR

This paper uses numerical simulations to show that galaxy mergers cause nuclear metal dilution and flatten metallicity gradients due to inflow of low-metallicity gas, aligning with observed low nuclear oxygen abundances.

Contribution

It provides the first simulation-based confirmation that radial inflow during mergers explains low nuclear metallicities and predicts gradient flattening, advancing understanding of galaxy chemical evolution.

Findings

Nuclear oxygen abundances decrease during mergers due to gas inflow.

Radial metallicity gradients flatten shortly after first pericenter.

Simulated abundance dilution matches observational data.

Abstract

Recent results comparing interacting galaxies to the mass-metallicity relation show that their nuclear oxygen abundances are unexpectedly low. We present analysis of N-body/SPH numerical simulations of equal-mass mergers that confirm the hypothesis that these underabundances are accounted for by radial inflow of low-metallicity gas from the outskirts of the two merging galaxies. The underabundances arise between first and second pericenter, and the simulated abundance dilution is in good agreement with observations. The simulations further predict that the radial metallicity gradients of the disk galaxies flatten shortly after first passage, due to radial mixing of gas. These predictions will be tested by future observations of the radial metallicity distributions in interacting galaxies.