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Paper: Metallicity Profiles in Spiral Disks
Volume: 230, Galaxy Disks and Disk Galaxies
Page: 353
Authors: Garnett, D. R.
Abstract: I present a summary of observed trends in interstellar abundances and abundance gradients with structural properties of disk galaxies. The following results were presented: (1) Average metallicity in disk galaxies is correlated with absolute blue luminosity. There is some evidence that the average metallicity saturates for galaxies with maximum rotation velocities greater than 200 km/s. Low surface brightness galaxies also obey the metallicity-luminosity correlation. (2) The abundance gradient per unit disk scalelength is uncorrelated with galaxy luminosity or rotation velocity, with relatively small scatter compared to observational uncertainties. This suggests that disk galaxies may have a `universal' metallicity profile. (3) Luminous disk galaxies are more metal-rich than low-luminosity disks at the same surface brightness. Luminous spirals appear to enrich their disks much more efficiently than less luminous spirals. (4) A preliminary comparison of effective yields (derived using the closed box chemical evolution model) for LSB and high surface brightness spirals suggests that LSBs generally have smaller effective yields. This may mean that LSB evolution is more strongly affected by gas inflow or outflows than for HSB spirals.
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