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Register a new userDamped Lyman alpha Absorbing Galaxies At Low Redshifts z<1 From Hierarchical Galaxy Formation Models
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We investigate Damped Ly-alpha absorbing galaxies (DLA galaxies) at low redshifts z<1 in the hierarchical structure formation scenario to clarify the nature of DLA galaxies because observational data of such galaxies mainly at low redshifts are currently available. We find that our model well reproduces distributions of fundamental properties of DLA galaxies such as luminosities, column densities, impact parameters obtained by optical and near-infrared imagings. Our results suggest that DLA systems primarily consist of low luminosity galaxies with small impact parameters (typical radius about 3 kpc, surface brightness from 22 to 27 mag arcsec^{-2}) similar to low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. In addition, we investigate selection biases arising from the faintness and from the masking effect which prevents us from identifying a DLA galaxy hidden or contaminated by a point spread function of a background quasar. We find that the latter affects the distributions of DLA properties more seriously rather than the former, and that the observational data are well reproduced only when taking into account the masking effect. The missing rate of DLA galaxies by the masking effect attains 60-90 % in the sample at redshift 0<z<1 when an angular size limit is as small as 1 arcsec. Furthermore we find a tight correlation between HI mass and cross section of DLA galaxies, and also find that HI-rich galaxies with M(HI) sim 10^{9} M_sun dominate DLA systems. These features are entirely consistent with those from the Arecibo Dual-Beam Survey which is a blind 21 cm survey. Finally we discuss star formation rates, and find that they are typically about 10^{-2} M_sun yr^{-1} as low as those in LSB galaxies.
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We investigate chemical enrichment in Damped Lyman alpha (DLA) systems in the hierarchical structure formation scenario using a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. The model developed by Nagashima, Totani, Gouda and Yoshii takes into account various selection effects on high-redshift galaxies and can show fundamental observational properties of galaxies, such as luminosity functions and number-magnitude/redshift relations. DLA systems offer the possibilities of measuring metal abundance more accurately than faint galaxies. For example, recent measurements of zinc abundance can provide good evidence for understanding the processes of metal pollution and star formation in DLA systems because zinc is virtually unaffected by dust depletion. Here we focus on this advantage for observation in order to explore the metallicity evolution in DLA systems at high redshifts. We can consistently show the metallicity evolution for reasonable models which also reproduce fundamental properties of local galaxy population. This result suggests that the chemical evolution of DLA systems can be consistently reconciled with the observational features of typical galaxies. We also investigate other properties of DLA systems (column density distribution and mass density of cold gas), and find that star formation in massive galaxies should be more active than that in low-mass ones. This is consistent with the results by Nagashima et al. and Cole et al. in which the star formation timescale is set by reproducing cold gas mass fraction in local spiral galaxies. Finally we discuss host galaxies associated with DLA systems. We conclude that they primarily consist of sub-L* and/or dwarf galaxies from the observations.
We present Keck/LRIS spectra of a candidate damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) galaxy toward the QSO 3C196 (z_em = 0.871). The DLA absorption system has a redshift of z_DLA = 0.437, and a galaxy at 1.5 from the QSO has been identified in high resolution imaging with WFPC2/HST. We have detected emission lines of [O II] 3727A, Hbeta, [O III] 5007A, Halpha and [N II] 6584A at the absorption redshift. Based on the emission lines, we have found the redshift of the galaxy to be z_em = 0.4376 +/- 0.0006. The emission lines also enabled us to calculate the extinction-corrected luminosities and metallicity indicators using established indices based on line strengths of different emission lines. These indicators suggest that the ISM of the DLA galaxy has a high metallicity comparable to or perhaps twice as much as solar (e.g. 12+log (O/H) = 8.98 +/- 0.07). Based on the strengths of Halpha and on the reddening derived from the relative strengths of Halpha and Hbeta, the star formation rate is 4.7 +/- 0.8 M_solar/yr. This places the galaxy in the range of gas-rich spiral galaxies.
Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) early data release spectra, we have identified 370 MgII absorption systems with MgII 2796 rest equivalent widths >= 1A and redshifts z=0.9-2.2. From our previous and ongoing HST UV spectroscopic studies, we estimate that the mean neutral hydrogen column density of a system selected in this manner is N(HI) = 3.6 +/- 1.3 x10^(20) atoms cm^(-2), which corresponds to the damped Ly-alpha (DLA) regime. We have formed high signal-to-noise ratio composite spectra using 223 of these systems with z=0.9-2.0 in order to study the strength of the ZnII and CrII absorption lines corresponding to this mean neutral hydrogen column density. After making a correction for missed DLAs, overall we find that [Zn/H] = -1.13 +/- 0.19. We find [Cr/Zn] = -0.45 +/- 0.13, which indicates that approx 65% of the Cr is depleted on to grains, but this does not correct for the missed DLAs. We have also derived Zn and Cr abundances in two kinematic regimes, and within each regime we consider two redshift intervals. We find trends which indicate that metallicities are higher in the composites where the absorption has larger velocity spreads as measured by MgII 2796 rest equivalent width. Larger velocity spreads may correspond to deeper gravitational potential wells which represent more massive and chemically evolved structures, and/or regions associated with winds from starbursting galaxies, also leading to kinematically broad structures of chemically enriched gas. Within the large velocity spread regime, we find that at lower redshifts the Zn metallicity is larger and more Cr is depleted on to grains.
Damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs), seen in absorption against a background quasar, provide the most detailed probes available of element abundances in the Universe over > 90 % of its age. DLAs can be used to observationally measure the global mean metallicity in the Universe and its evolution with time. Paradoxically, these observations are more difficult at lower redshifts, where the absorber rest-frame UV spectra are cut-off due to the atmospheric absorption. We present here high-resolution VLT/UVES observations of several elements contained in three DLAs and one sub-DLA with 0.6<z_abs<0.9. We detect Mg I, Mg II, Fe II, Zn II, Cr II, Mn II, Ti II and Ca II. Our observations more than double the high-resolution sample of [Zn/H] at z<1. We also report the discovery of three metal-rich systems, whereas most previous measurements show low N(HI)-weighted mean metallicity projecting to about 1/6th solar level at z=0. We derive [Zn/H]=-0.11+/-0.04 at z_abs=0.725, [Zn/H]=-0.54+/-0.20 at z_abs=0.740 and [Zn/H]=-0.49+/-0.22 at z_abs=0.652, plus one additional upper limit ([Zn/H]<-0.36 at z_abs=0.842). These measurements confirm the existence of quasar absorbers with relatively high metallicities based on abundance estimates free from the effect of dust depletion. Possible implications of these results for the metallicity of neutral gas phase in the past ~ 8 Gyr are presented and compared with models.
Le Brun et al. (1997) presented the first identifications of the galaxies giving rise to 7 intermediate redshift damped Ly-alpha (DLA) absorption systems. Here, we study the gravitational lensing properties of these foreground galaxies based on their observed optical appearance and on the absence of any secondary lensed quasar image. We consider the possibility that any secondary image be hidden due to extinction by dust, but find it unlikely. We derive upper limits on the amplification factor affecting the luminosity of the background quasars; in each case, this factor is found to be less than 0.3 mag. We also obtain upper limits on the total mass of the damped Ly-alpha galaxies, within radii equal to the quasar impact parameters. Mass-to-light ratios are found to be consistent with existing estimates based on X-ray emission or on motion of dwarf satellites. Although we show that lensing is not important in this sample, we note that existing DLA surveys used to determine the cosmological density of gas at z<1 are based on samples of quasars brighter than the ones considered here and for which the amplification bias is likely to be stronger.
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