arxiv: 1506.00638 · v1 · pith:RERUQ7M6new · submitted 2015-06-01 · 🌌 astro-ph.GA

IMF - metallicity: a tight local relation revealed by the CALIFA survey

Ignacio Mart\'in-Navarro , Alexandre Vazdekis , Francesco La Barbera , Jes\'us Falc\'on-Barroso , Mariya Lyubenova , Glenn van de Ven , Ignacio Ferreras , S.F. S\'anchez

show 8 more authors

S.C. Trager R. Garc\'ia-Benito D. Mast M.A. Mendoza P. S\'anchez-Bl\'azquez R. Gonz\'alez Delgado C.J. Walcher the CALIFA team

This is my paper

classification 🌌 astro-ph.GA

keywords early-typegalaxiesgalaxylocalmetallicityrelationbeencalifa

0 comments p. Extension

Add this Pith Number to your LaTeX paper

What is a Pith Number?

\usepackage{pith}
\pithnumber{RERUQ7M6}

Prints a linked pith:RERUQ7M6 badge after your title and writes the identifier into PDF metadata. Compiles on arXiv with no extra files. Learn more

read the original abstract

Variations in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) have been invoked to explain the spectroscopic and dynamical properties of early-type galaxies. However, no observations have yet been able to disentangle the physical driver. We analyse here a sample of 24 early-type galaxies drawn from the CALIFA survey, deriving in a homogeneous way their stellar population and kinematic properties. We find that the local IMF is tightly related to the local metallicity, becoming more bottom-heavy towards metal-rich populations. Our result, combined with the galaxy mass-metallicity relation, naturally explains previous claims of a galaxy mass-IMF relation, derived from non-IFU spectra. If we assume that - within the star formation environment of early-type galaxies - metallicity is the main driver of IMF variations, a significant revision of the interpretation of galaxy evolution observables is necessary.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet.

IMF - metallicity: a tight local relation revealed by the CALIFA survey

discussion (0)