Scaling relations and baryonic cycling in local star-forming galaxies: I. The sample

Understand

Metallicity and gas content are intimately related in the baryonic exchange cycle of galaxies, and galaxy evolution scenarios can be constrained by quantifying this relation.

• To this end, we have compiled a sample of ~400 galaxies in the Local Universe, dubbed "MAGMA" (Metallicity And Gas for Mass Assembly), which covers an unprecedented range in parameter space, spanning more than 5 orders of magnitude in stellar mass (Mstar), star-formation rate (SFR), and gas mass (Mgas), and a factor of ~60 in metallicity [Z, 12+log(O/H)].
• Stellar masses and SFRs have been recalculated for all the galaxies using IRAC, WISE and GALEX photometry, and 12+log(O/H) has been transformed, where necessary, to a common metallicity calibration.
• To assess the true dimensionality of the data, we have applied multi-dimensional principal component analyses (PCAs) to our sample.