Metallicity Evolution of Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations

DE ROSSI, MARÍA EMILIA; THEUNS, TOM; FONT, ANDREEA S.; MCCARTHY, IAN G.

Congreso; 57a Reunión Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía; 2014

Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba

We compare the observed mass-metallicity relation against the one obtained from the Galaxies-Intergalactic Medium Interaction Calculation suite of cosmological simulations. In agreement with observations, we found that simulated galaxies exhibit a well-defined correlation between metallicity and stellar mass in such a way that more massive galaxies are more metal-enriched. The simulations reproduce the observed z = 0 stellar mass-metallicity relation well, and also the trend with redshift. However, at a given stellar mass, simulated gas-phase abundances do not show a significant evolution as observations suggest.