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| Paper: |
Abundances in Spiral Galaxies: Correlations with Galaxy Properties |
| Volume: |
147, Abundance Profiles: Diagnostic Tools for Galaxy History |
| Page: |
78 |
| Authors: |
Garnett, Donald R. |
| Abstract: |
I review some of the global correlations of abundances and abundance gradients in spiral galaxies with the structural properties of those galaxies. The well-known correlation between ``average'' metallicity and galaxy mass/luminosity remains a prominent result. The correlation of metallicity with maximum circular velocity is equally strong. Although the abundance gradient per kpc appears to correlate strongly with galaxy luminosity, this may be an artifact because bigger galaxies have larger scale lengths. When the abundance gradient per unit disk scale length is used instead, there is no correlation of the slope with galaxy luminosity, with a scatter consistent with being entirely due to observational errors. This result suggests that spirals evolve homologously, and that the abundances are tied very closely to the underlying disk surface brightness. The oxygen abundance at a fixed value of surface brightness correlates with galaxy luminosity in the sense that the more luminous galaxies have higher O/H at the same surface brightness. |
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