Papers › Gas-phase metallicity break radii of star-forming galaxies in IllustrisTNG
Gas-phase metallicity break radii of star-forming galaxies in IllustrisTNG
Alex M. Garcia, Paul Torrey, Z. S. Hemler, Lars Hernquist, Lisa J. Kewley, Erica J. Nelson, Kathryn Grasha, Henry R. M. Zovaro, Qian-Hui Chen
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We present radial gas-phase metallicity profiles, gradients, and break radii at redshift z = 0 - 3 from the TNG50-1 star-forming galaxy population. These metallicity profiles are characterized by an emphasis on identifying the steep inner gradient and flat outer gradient. From this, the break radius, r_(Break), is defined as the region where the transition occurs. We observe the break radius having a positive trend with mass that weakens with redshift. When normalized by the stellar half-mass radius, the break radius has a weaker relation with both mass and redshift. To test if our results are dependent on the resolution or adopted physics of TNG50-1, the same analysis is performed in TNG50-2 and Illustris-1. We find general agreement between each of the simulations in their qualitative trends; however, the adopted physics between TNG and Illustris differ and therefore the breaks, normalized by galaxy size, deviate by a factor of ∼2. In order to understand where the break comes from, we define two relevant time-scales: an enrichment time-scale and a radial gas mixing time-scale. We find that r_(Break) occurs where the gas mixing time-scale is ∼10 times as long as the enrichment time-scale in all three simulation runs, with some weak mass and redshift dependence. This implies that galactic disks can be thought of in two-parts: a star-forming inner disk with a steep gradient and a mixing-dominated outer disk with a flat gradient, with the break radius marking the region of transition between them.
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