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De re metallica: the cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Abstract

The evolution of the content of heavy elements in galaxies, the relative chemical abundances, their spatial distribution, and how these scale with various galactic properties, provide unique information on the galactic evolutionary processes across the cosmic epochs. In recent years major progress has been made in constraining the chemical evolution of galaxies and inferring key information relevant to our understanding of the main mechanisms involved in galaxy evolution. In this review we provide an overview of these various areas. After an overview of the methods used to constrain the chemical enrichment in galaxies and their environment, we discuss the observed scaling relations between metallicity and galaxy properties, the observed relative chemical abundances, how the chemical elements are distributed within galaxies, and how these properties evolve across the cosmic epochs. We discuss how the various observational findings compare with the predictions from theoretical models and numerical cosmological simulations. Finally, we briefly discuss the open problems the prospects for progress in this field in the nearby future.

Description

Keywords

Galaxy metallicity, Chemical abundances, Galaxy evolution, Galaxy formation

Journal Title

Astronomy and Astrophysics Review

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0935-4956
1432-0754

Volume Title

27

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/M001172/1)
European Research Council (695671)
STFC ERC