Leader: Sarah M. Sweet
Email: s.sweet@uq.edu.au
Collaborators: Please contact me if you are interested!
Topic: The unexpected dynamics of low-mass dwarf galaxies
Status: under review by Science Committee
Abstract: The gas-phase oxygen abundance of a galaxy traces its stellar evolutionary history: centres of galaxies tend to be older and more metal rich than their disks, resulting in ubiquitously negative radial gradients. This ubiquiosity is tempered by environmental interactions (particularly for dwarf galaxies), which flatten the gradients at the outskirts due to radial migration. However, the clumpy morphology of many dwarf galaxies also means they have large scatter in their radial metallicity gradients, which obfuscates the connection between environment and chemical evolution. Azimuthal gradients, which trace spiral arms, are not useful for dwarfs either, since dwarf galaxies do not typically have well-defined spiral arms. We will investigate new techniques to quantify the 2D chemical evolution in a statistical manner, and explore the link between this and the impact of the environment on galaxy evolution.
Needed data products: Gas-phase oxygen abundance maps in a variety of popular diagnostics (R23, N2O2, N2S2Ha, O3N2, …), Ha emission line flux maps, environmental metrics.
Publication Date: 07/07/2025