The role of atomic hydrogen in regulating the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation

TL;DR

This study uses stacking of HI spectra for nearly 10,000 star-forming galaxies to demonstrate that atomic hydrogen content strongly influences the scatter in the mass-metallicity relation, supporting an evolving equilibrium model.

Contribution

It provides the first consistent analysis across different metallicity estimators, linking gas content fluctuations to metallicity scatter in galaxies.

Findings

Strong anti-correlation between HI mass and metallicity at fixed stellar mass.

Consistency of the gas-metallicity relationship across different metallicity estimators.

Scatter in the relation is primarily driven by fluctuations in gas accretion.

Abstract

In this paper, we stack neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) spectra for 9,720 star forming galaxies along the mass-metallicity relation. The sample is selected according to stellar mass (10$^9 \leq$ M$_{\star}$/M$_{\odot}\leq$10$^{11}$) and redshift ($0.02 \leq z \leq 0.05$) from the overlap of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey. We confirm and quantify the strong anti-correlation between HI mass and gas-phase metallicity at fixed stellar mass. Furthermore, we show for the first time that the relationship between gas content and metallicity is consistent between different metallicity estimators, contrary to the weaker trends found with star formation which are known to depend on the observational techniques used to derive oxygen abundances and star formation rates. When interpreted in the context of theoretical work, this result supports a scenario where galaxies exist in an evolving equilibrium between gas, metallicity and star formation. The fact that deviations from this equilibrium are most strongly correlated with gas mass suggests that the scatter in the mass-metallicity relation is primarily driven by fluctuations in gas accretion.