Chemodynamic Evolution Of Dwarf Galaxies In Tidal Fields
Journal article, 2016

The mass–metallicity relation shows that the galaxies with the lowest mass have the lowest metallicities. As most dwarf galaxies are in group environments, interaction effects such as tides could contribute to this trend. We perform a series of smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of dwarf galaxies in external tidal fields to examine the effects of tides on their metallicities and metallicity gradients. In our simulated galaxies, gravitational instabilities drive gas inwards and produce centralized star formation and a significant metallicity gradient. Strong tides can contribute to these instabilities, but their primary effect is to strip the outer low-metallicity gas, producing a truncated gas disk with a large metallicity. This suggests that the effect of tides on the mass–metallicity relation is to move dwarf galaxies to higher metallicities.

Author

David Williamson

Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique du Québec

Universite Laval

Hugo Martel

Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique du Québec

Universite Laval

Alessandro Romeo

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysical Journal

0004-637X (ISSN) 1538-4357 (eISSN)

Vol. 831 1 1 (15 pp)- 1

Subject Categories

Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Roots

Basic sciences

DOI

10.3847/0004-637X/831/1/1

More information

Created

10/7/2017