Cosmic chemical enrichment

Metallicities and elemental abundances are the fossils that can tell us the star formation history of the Universe. We have predicted the time/redshift evolution of the spatial distributions of elements (Fig. 1), which are consistent with observations of star forming galaxies at high redshift (z~2) and early-type galaxies at low redshift (z~0). Chemical enrichment is dependent on the environment and - as is well known - metallicity varies even inside galaxies. These are respectively, the mass-metallicity relation, and the phenomenon of the metallicity radial gradient. This work aims to trace the physical origins of these observed relations.

The time evolution of our cosmological simulation in a periodic box 10/h Mpc on a side. We show the projected stellar V-luminosity (upper panels) and gas metallicity, log Z/Zsun (lower panels). Metals are ejected from stars into the intergalactic medium via supernova-driven galactic winds. Watch the movie on this link.