Environmental imprint on galaxy chemical enrichment

TL;DR

This study investigates how the environment within galaxy clusters influences the chemical enrichment of low-mass star-forming galaxies, revealing that cluster core conditions affect their metallicity and chemical evolution.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence of environment-dependent metallicity trends in cluster galaxies and links these to hydrodynamic models of cluster-specific effects.

Findings

Flattening of the Mass-Metallicity Relation in cluster cores

Metallicity enhancement depends on galaxy and cluster mass

Environmental effects influence chemical evolution in low-mass galaxies

Abstract

Recent results are presented on the metal enrichment of low-mass star-forming (SF) galaxies in local Universe clusters. The environmental effects on the chemical evolution of these galaxies are discussed. We have used spectroscopic data from the SDSSIII-DR8 and we have derived the gas-phase O/H and N/O abundances. We have then examined the Mass-Metallicity Relation (MZR) of this sample of cluster galaxies, and we have found well defined sequences. A flattening of the slope of these sequences has been observed for galaxies located in the core of the two more massive clusters of the sample, suggesting that the effect of the cluster environment depends both on the galaxy mass and the host cluster mass. Based on these results we explore cluster-specific effects (e.g. ram-pressure stripping, pressure confinement etc), predicted by hydrodynamic models, capable of yielding the observed mass-dependent enhancement of the metallicity.