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Impact of radial migration on stellar and gas radial metallicity distribution

Grand, RJJ; Kawata, D; Cropper, M; (2015) Impact of radial migration on stellar and gas radial metallicity distribution. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , 447 (4) 4018-4027. 10.1093/mnras/stv016. Green open access

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Abstract

Radial migration is defined as the change in guiding centre radius of stars and gas caused by gains or losses of angular momentum that result from gravitational interaction with non-axisymmetric structure. This has been shown to have significant impact on the metallicity distribution in galactic discs, and therefore affects the interpretation of Galactic archeology. We use a simulation of a Milky Way-sized galaxy to examine the effect of radial migration on the star and gas radial metallicity distribution. We find that both the star and gas component show significant radial migration. The stellar radial metallicity gradient remains almost unchanged but the radial metallicity distribution of the stars is broadened to produce a greater dispersion at all radii. However, the metallicity dispersion of the gas remains narrow. We find that the main drivers of the gas metallicity distribution evolution are metal enrichment and mixing: more efficient metal enrichment in the inner region maintains a negative slope in the radial metallicity distribution, and the metal mixing ensures the tight relationship of the gas metallicity with the radius. The metallicity distribution function reproduces the trend in the age-metallicity relation found from observations for stars younger than 1.0 Gyr in the Milky Way.

Type: Article
Title: Impact of radial migration on stellar and gas radial metallicity distribution
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stv016
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv016
Language: English
Additional information: 11 pages, 12 figures. Matches version accepted by MNRAS. Comments welcome This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in [Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society] following peer review. The version of record [Grand, RJJ; Kawata, D; Cropper, M; (2014) Impact of radial migration on stellar and gas radial metallicity distribution. 10.1093/mnras/stv016. ] is available online at: xxxxxxx [http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv016].
Keywords: Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: kinematics and dynamics, Galaxies: spiral, Galaxies: structure
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1454939
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