Evolution of the chemical enrichment and the mass-metallicity relation in CALIFA galaxies

Abstract

We apply fossil record techniques to the CALIFA sample to study how galaxies in the Local Universe have evolved in terms of their chemical content. We show how the stellar metallicity and the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) evolve through time for the galaxies in our sample and how this evolution varies when we divide them based on their mass, morphology, and star-forming status. We also check the impact of measuring the metallicity at the centre or the outskirts. We find the expected results that the most massive galaxies were enriched more quickly, and that the MZR was steeper at higher redshifts. However, once we separate the galaxies into morphology bins this behaviour is less clear, which suggests that morphology is a primary factor in determining how quickly a galaxy becomes enriched, but with mass determining the final enrichment. We also find that star-forming galaxies (SFGs) appear to be asymptotic in their chemical evolution; that is, the metallicity of SFGs of any mass is very similar at recent times unlike several Gyr ago. © 2021 The Author(s).