---
_id: '11585'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Observations show that star-forming galaxies reside on a tight three-dimensional
    plane between mass, gas-phase metallicity and star formation rate (SFR), which
    can be explained by the interplay between metal-poor gas inflows, SFR and outflows.
    However, different metals are released on different time-scales, which may affect
    the slope of this relation. Here, we use central, star-forming galaxies with Mstar
    = 109.0−10.5 M\f from the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation to examine three-dimensional
    relations between mass, SFR and chemical enrichment using absolute and relative
    C, N, O and Fe abundances. We show that the scatter is smaller when gas-phase
    α-enhancement is used rather than metallicity. A similar plane also exists for
    stellar α-enhancement, implying that present-day specific SFRs are correlated
    with long time-scale star formation histories. Between z = 0 and 1, the α-enhancement
    plane is even more insensitive to redshift than the plane using metallicity. However,
    it evolves at z > 1 due to lagging iron yields. At fixed mass, galaxies with higher
    SFRs have star formation histories shifted toward late times, are more α-enhanced
    and this α-enhancement increases with redshift as observed. These findings suggest
    that relations between physical properties inferred from observations may be affected
    by systematic variations in α-enhancements."
acknowledgement: We thank the anonymous referee for their constructive comments. JM
  acknowledges the support of a Huygens PhD fellowship from Leiden University. We
  thank Jarle Brinchmann, Rob Crain and David Sobral for discussions. We acknowledge
  the use of the Topcat software (Taylor 2013) for assisting in rapid exploration
  of multi-dimensional datasets and the use of Python and its numpy, matplotlib and
  pandas packages.
article_processing_charge: No
article_type: original
arxiv: 1
author:
- first_name: Jorryt J
  full_name: Matthee, Jorryt J
  id: 7439a258-f3c0-11ec-9501-9df22fe06720
  last_name: Matthee
  orcid: 0000-0003-2871-127X
citation:
  ama: Matthee JJ. Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the mass. <i>Nature
    Astronomy</i>. 2021;5:984-985. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y">10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y</a>
  apa: Matthee, J. J. (2021). Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the
    mass. <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y</a>
  chicago: Matthee, Jorryt J. “Differences in Galaxy Colours Are Not Just about the
    Mass.” <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. Springer Nature, 2021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y</a>.
  ieee: J. J. Matthee, “Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the mass,”
    <i>Nature Astronomy</i>, vol. 5. Springer Nature, pp. 984–985, 2021.
  ista: Matthee JJ. 2021. Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the mass.
    Nature Astronomy. 5, 984–985.
  mla: Matthee, Jorryt J. “Differences in Galaxy Colours Are Not Just about the Mass.”
    <i>Nature Astronomy</i>, vol. 5, Springer Nature, 2021, pp. 984–85, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y">10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y</a>.
  short: J.J. Matthee, Nature Astronomy 5 (2021) 984–985.
date_created: 2022-07-14T13:13:39Z
date_published: 2021-07-05T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2024-10-14T11:38:08Z
day: '05'
doi: 10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y
extern: '1'
external_id:
  arxiv:
  - '1802.06786'
intvolume: '         5'
keyword:
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- galaxies
- formation - galaxies
- evolution - galaxies
- star formation - galaxies
- abundances
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.06786
month: '07'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 984-985
publication: Nature Astronomy
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 2397-3366
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the mass
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 5
year: '2021'
...