Speaker: Piyush Sharda (Australian National University)
The physics of gas-phase metal distribution in galaxies.
Thanks to Integral Field Unit (IFU) spectroscopy, the last decade has a seen a surge in the observations of spatially-resolved metal content in galaxies. In particular, gas-phase radial metallicity gradients have now been measured in thousands of local galaxies, thus prompting active research into understanding the physics behind these gradients. In this talk, I will present the results from our first-principles modeling of metallicity gradients in galaxies, and show how metallicity theory when combined with galaxy evolution theory naturally gives rise to the observed trends in metallicity gradients with various galaxy properties. I will also discuss the implications of these results on the enrichment of the circumgalactic medium. I will end by discussing how the next generation of astronomical facilities will provide exciting opportunities to use metals as tracers of galaxy evolution over cosmic time.