The evolution of the mass-metallicity relation in SDSS galaxies uncovered by astropaleontology

We have obtained the mass-metallicity (M–Z) relation at different lookback times for the same set of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, using the stellar metallicities estimated with our spectral synthesis code starlight. We have found that this relation steepens and spans a wider range in both mass and metallicity at higher redshifts. We have modeled the time evolution of stellar metallicity with a closedbox chemical evolution model, for galaxies of different types and masses. Our results suggest that the M–Z relation for galaxies with present-day stellar masses down to 1010M⊙ is mainly driven by the history of star formation history and not by inflows or outflows.