SDSS-IV MaNGA: Stellar M/L gradients and the M/L-colour relation in galaxies

Abstract

ABSTRACT The stellar mass-to-light ratio gradient in SDSS r-band ∇(M*/Lr) of a galaxy depends on its mass assembly history, which is imprinted in its morphology and gradients of age, metallicity, and stellar initial mass function (IMF). Taking a MaNGA sample of 2051 galaxies with stellar masses ranging from 109 to 1012M⊙ released in SDSS DR15, we focus on face-on galaxies, without merger and bar signatures, and investigate the dependence of the 2D ∇(M*/Lr) on other galaxy properties, including M*/Lr-colour relationships by assuming a fixed Salpeter IMF as the mass normalization reference. The median gradient is ∇M*/Lr ∼ −0.1 (i.e. the M*/Lr is larger at the centre) for massive galaxies, becomes flat around M* ∼ 1010M⊙ and change sign to ∇M*/Lr ∼ 0.1 at the lowest masses. The M*/Lr inside a half-light radius increases with increasing galaxy stellar mass; in each mass bin, early-type galaxies have the highest value, while pure-disc late-type galaxies have the smallest. Correlation analyses suggest that the mass-weighted stellar age is the dominant parameter influencing the M*/Lr profile, since a luminosity-weighted age is easily affected by star formation when the specific star formation rate (sSFR) inside the half-light radius is higher than 10−3 Gyr−1. With increased sSFR gradient, one can obtain a steeper negative ∇(M*/Lr). The scatter in the slopes of M*/L-colour relations increases with increasing sSFR, for example, the slope for post-starburst galaxies can be flattened to 0.45 from the global value 0.87 in the M*/L versus g − r diagram. Hence converting galaxy colours to M*/L should be done carefully, especially for those galaxies with young luminosity-weighted stellar ages, which can have quite different star formation histories.