Metallicity gradients in local field star-forming galaxies: Insights on inflows, outflows, and the coevolution of gas, stars and metals

TL;DR

This study measures metallicity gradients in 49 local star-forming galaxies, analyzing their relation to galaxy properties and modeling their chemical evolution to understand gas, stars, and metals coevolution.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of metallicity gradients using two calibrations and offers a local benchmark gradient for high-redshift comparisons, supported by chemical evolution models.

Findings

Lower mass and luminosity galaxies have steeper gradients in dex/kpc.

No correlation between gradients in dex/R25 and galaxy mass or luminosity.

Local benchmark gradient results suggest low current gas inflow and outflow rates.

Abstract

We present metallicity gradients in 49 local field star-forming galaxies. We derive gas-phase oxygen abundances using two widely adopted metallicity calibrations based on the [OIII]/Hbeta, [NII]/Halpha and [NII]/[OII] line ratios. The two derived metallicity gradients are usually in good agreement within +/-0.14 dex/R25 (R25 is the B-band iso-photoal radius), but the metallicity gradients can differ significantly when the ionisation parameters change systematically with radius. We investigate the metallicity gradients as a function of stellar mass (8<log(M*/Msun)<11) and absolute B-band luminosity (-16 > MB > -22). When the metallicity gradients are expressed in dex/kpc, we show that galaxies with lower mass and luminosity, on average, have steeper metallicity gradients. When the metallicity gradients are expressed in dex/R25, we find no correlation between the metallicity gradients, and stellar mass and luminosity. We provide a local benchmark metallicity gradient of field star-forming galaxies useful for comparison with studies at high redshifts. We investigate the origin of the local benchmark gradient using simple chemical evolution models and observed gas and stellar surface density profiles in nearby field spiral galaxies. Our models suggest that the local benchmark gradient is a direct result of the coevolution of gas and stellar disk under virtually closed-box chemical evolution when the stellar-to-gas mass ratio becomes high (>>0.3). These models imply low current mass accretion rates (<0.3xSFR), and low mass outflow rates (<3xSFR) in local field star-forming galaxies.