Chemically consistent evolution of galaxies: II. Spectrophotometric evolution from zero to high redshift

TL;DR

This paper introduces chemically consistent galaxy evolution models that track chemical enrichment and spectral changes over time, successfully matching observed galaxy properties from local to high redshift.

Contribution

The models incorporate evolving metallicity, stellar spectra, and yields, providing a more realistic simulation of galaxy evolution compared to previous single-metallicity models.

Findings

Models reproduce observed metallicity distributions in local galaxies.

Spectral and color evolution match observed galaxy data over cosmic time.

Predictions align with high-redshift galaxy observations from HDF.

Abstract

We present a new generation of chemically consistent evolutionary synthesis models for galaxies of various spectral types from E through Sd. The models follow the chemical enrichment of the ISM and take into account the increasing initial metallicity of successive stellar generations using recently published metallicity dependent stellar evolutionary isochrones, spectra and yields. Our first set of closed-box 1-zone models does not include any spatial resolution or dynamics. For a Salpeter initial mass function (IMF) the star formation rate(SFR) and its time evolution are shown to successfully parameterise spectral galaxy types E, ..., Sd. We show how the stellar metallicity distribution in various galaxy types build up with time to yield after $\sim 12$ Gyr agreement with stellar metallicity distributions observed in our and other local galaxies. The models give integrated galaxy spectra over a wide wavelength range (90.9\AA - 160$\mu$m), which for ages of $\sim 12$ Gyr are in good agreement not only with observed broad band colours but also with template spectra for the respective galaxy types. Using filter functions for Johnson-Cousins, as well as for HST broad band filters in the optical and Bessel & Brett's NIR filter system, we calculate the luminosity and colour evolution of model galaxies over a Hubble time. Including a standard cosmological model and the attenuation by intergalactic hydrogen we present evolutionary and cosmological corrections as well as apparent luminosities in various filters over the redshift range from z $\sim 5$ to the present for our galaxy types and compare to earlier models using single (=solar) metallicity input physics only. We also present a first comparison of our cc models to HDF data.(Abridged abstract)