GASP XXVII: Gas-phase Metallicity Scaling Relations in Disk Galaxies with and without Ram Pressure Stripping

Abstract

Exploiting the data from the GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies with MUSE (GASP) survey, we study the gas-phase metallicity scaling relations of a sample of 29 cluster galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping and of a reference sample of (16 cluster and 16 field) galaxies with no significant signs of gas disturbance. We adopt the pyqz code to infer the mean gas metallicity at the effective radius and achieve a well-defined mass–metallicity relation (MZR) in the stellar mass range with a scatter of 0.12 dex. At any given mass, reference cluster and stripping galaxies have similar metallicities, while the field galaxies with M ⋆  < 10 10.25 M ⊙ show on average lower gas metallicity than galaxies in clusters. Our results indicate that at the effective radius, the chemical properties of the stripping galaxies are independent of the ram pressure stripping mechanism. Nonetheless, at the lowest masses, we detect four stripping galaxies well above the common MZR that suggest a more complex scenario. Overall, we find signs of an anticorrelation between the metallicity and both the star formation rate and the galaxy size, in agreement with previous studies. No significant trends are instead found with the halo mass, clustercentric distance, and local galaxy density in clusters. In conclusion, we advise a more detailed analysis of the spatially resolved gas metallicity maps of the galaxies, able to highlight effects of gas redistribution inside the disk due to ram pressure stripping.