English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The gas-phase metallicity of galaxies encodes important information aboutgalaxy evolution processes, in particular star formation, feedback, outflowsand gas accretion, the relative importance of which can be extracted fromsystematic trends in the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation (MZR). Here,we use a sample of low redshift (0.02 < z < 0.055) galaxies from SDSS toinvestigate the nature of the scatter around the MZR, the observables andphysical processes causing it, and its dependence on galaxy mass. We use coldgas masses inferred from optical emission lines using the technique of Scholte& Saintonge (2023) to confirm that at fixed stellar mass, metallicity and gasmass are anti-correlated, but only for galaxies up to M*= 10^{10.5} Msun. Inthat mass regime, we find a link between the offset of a galaxy from the MZRand halo mass, using the amplitude of the two-point correlation function as aproxy for halo mass; at fixed stellar mass, the most gas-poor galaxies residein the most massive halos. This observation is consistent with changes in gasaccretion rates onto galaxies as a function of halo mass, with environmentaleffects acting on satellite galaxies also contributing. At higher stellarmasses, the scatter of the MZR does no longer correlate with gas or halo mass.Instead, there is some indication of a link with AGN activity, as expected frommodels and simulations that metallicity is set by the interplay between gas in-and outflows, star formation, and AGN feedback, shaping the MZR and itsscatter.

The impact of gas accretion and AGN feedback on the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation