A Population of Faint Extended Line Emitters and the Host Galaxies of Optically Thick QSO Absorption Systems

Rauch, Michael; Haehnelt, Martin G.; Bunker, Andrew J.; Becker, George D.; Marleau, F.; Graham, James R.; Cristiani, S.; Jarvis, Matt J.; Lacey, Cedric G.; Morris, Simon L.; Péroux, Céline; Röttgering, H. J. A.; Theuns, Tom

doi:10.1086/525846

Cited by 233 publications

(425 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…The emerging picture on the nature of DLAs we have seen developing over the previous decade is the following: DLAs originate from the outskirts of galaxies with properties within the range of star-forming LBGs at similar redshift, but due to their cross-section selection they are predominantly drawn from the faint end of the luminosity function (Fynbo et al 1999;Møller et al 2002;Fynbo et al 2008;Rauch et al 2008;Rauch & Haehnelt 2011). DLA galaxies fulfil a metallicity-velocity width relation (Ledoux et al 2006a) and a luminosity-metallicity relation (Møller et al 2004(Møller et al , 2013Fynbo et al 2008;Neeleman et al 2013) and therefore high-metallicity DLAs are expected to have more luminous galaxy counterparts than DLAs in general.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With modern observing facilities, is has been possible to study emission-selected galaxies to much deeper rest-frame flux limits (e.g. Sawicki & Thompson 2006;Gronwall et al 2007;Ouchi et al 2008;Rauch et al 2008;Grove et al 2009;Reddy & Steidel 2009;Cassata et al 2011;Trainor & Steidel 2012;Alavi et al 2014). Dedicated campaigns to detect emitting counterparts of DLAs have been carried out: using long-slit spectroscopy (e.g.…”

Section: Galaxy Counterparts Of Metal-rich Dlas 2739mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Galaxy counterparts of metal-rich damped Lyα absorbers: the case of J205922.4−052842★

Hartoog

Fynbo

Kaper

et al. 2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. ABSTRACTWe present observations of three new sources in the European Southern Observatory VLT/Xshooter survey dedicated to the detection of the emitting counterparts of damped Lyα (DLA) systems towards bright quasars (QSOs). The aim is to bridge the observational gap between absorption (i.e. DLAs) and emission-selected galaxies at z ∼ 2.2-2.5, in order to get a more complete picture of (proto)galaxies around this epoch. The hypothesis is that because DLA galaxies fulfil metallicity-velocity width and luminosity-metallicity relations, highmetallicity DLAs are more likely to be detected in emission. The region around each QSO is covered with slits (1. We conclude that focusing on metal-rich DLAs is a good way to find counterparts, but the non-detections at high metallicity (e.g. that of the DLA in J105744.5+062914) show that there is not a one-to-one relationship, and cautions us to not naively apply the properties of the DLA counterparts to all metal-rich DLAs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Galaxy Counterparts Of Metal-rich Dlas 2739mentioning

confidence: 99%

Galaxy counterparts of metal-rich damped Lyα absorbers: the case of J205922.4−052842★

Hartoog

Fynbo

Kaper

et al. 2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…DLA galaxies are fainter and have smaller SFRs than typical LBGs (Fynbo et al 1999;Colbert & Malkan 2002;Wolfe & Chen 2006;Fynbo et al 2008). Very deep spectroscopic observations of Lyα emission from candidate DLA galaxies gives typical SFRs of a few tenths of solar masses per year where the Lyα emission can be extended over a few tens of kpc (Rauch et al 2008). The DLA galaxies are therefore challenging to detect even with the largest telescopes.…”

Section: Strong H I Absorption Lines With Column Densities In the Dampedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncovering strong MgII absorbing galaxies

Christensen

Noterdaeme

Petitjean

et al. 2009

A&A

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Context. The nature of the galaxies that give rise to absorption lines, such as damped Lyman-α systems (DLAs) or strong Mg ii lines, in quasar spectra is difficult to investigate in emission. These galaxies can be very faint and located close to the lines of sight of the much brighter background quasars. Aims. Taking advantage of the total absorption of the QSO light bluewards of the Lyman limit of two DLAs at z > 3.4, we look for the continuum emission from intervening galaxies at z ≈ 2 that are identified via strong metal absorption lines. The Mg ii absorbers have equivalent width large enough to be potential DLA systems. Methods. Deep images are obtained with the FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (FORS1) on the Very Large Telescope for the fields towards SDSS J110855+120953 and SDSS J140850+020522. These quasars have Mg ii absorption lines at z = 1.87 (W r (Mg ii) = 2.46 Å) and z = 1.98 (W r (Mg ii) = 1.89 Å), respectively, and each QSO has two intervening higher redshift DLAs at z > 3. The U and R bands of FORS1 lie blue and redwards of the Lyman limit of the background DLAs, allowing us to search for emission from the foreground galaxies directly along the lines of sight to the QSOs. Results. No galaxies are found close to the sight line of the QSO to a point source limit of U AB ∼ 28.0. In both fields, the closest objects lie at an impact parameter of ∼5 corresponding to ∼40 kpc in projection at z = 2, and have typical colours of star forming galaxies at that redshift. However, the currently available data do not allow us to confirm if the galaxies lie at the same redshifts as the absorption systems. A more extended structure is visible in the SDSS J14085+020522 field at an impact parameter of 0. 8 or 7 kpc. If these objects are at z ≈ 2 their luminosities are 0.03-0.04 L * in both fields. The star formation rates estimated from the UV flux are 0.5-0.6 M yr −1 , while the SFRs are half these values if the U band flux is due to Lyα emission alone. Conclusions. The non-detection of galaxies near to the line of sight is most likely explained by low metallicities and luminosities of the Mg ii galaxies. Alternatively, the Mg ii clouds are part of extended halos or in outflows from low-metallicity galaxies.

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“…Ly α emitting galaxies (more generally called Lyman-α emitters, LAEs, Hu et al 1998) are detected using narrow-band filters tuned to the wavelength of Ly α (e.g. Rhoads et al 2000;Ouchi et al 2008;Ciardullo et al 2012), long-slit spectroscopy (Rauch et al 2008;Cassata et al 2011) or integral field spectroscopy (e.g. Petitjean et al 1996;Adams et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A connection between extremely strong damped Lyman-αsystems and Lyman-αemitting galaxies at small impact parameters

Noterdaeme

Petitjean

Pâris

et al. 2014

A&A

107

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We present a study of ∼100 high redshift (z ∼ 2−4) extremely strong damped Lyman-α systems (ESDLA, with N(H i) ≥ 0.5 × 10 22 cm −2 ) detected in quasar spectra from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) Data Release 11. We study the neutral hydrogen, metal, and dust content of this elusive population of absorbers and confirm our previous finding that the high column density end of the N(H i) frequency distribution has a relatively shallow slope with power-law index −3.6, similar to what is seen from 21-cm maps in nearby galaxies. The stacked absorption spectrum indicates a typical metallicity ∼1/20th solar, similar to the mean metallicity of the overall DLA population. The relatively small velocity extent of the low-ionisation lines suggests that ESDLAs do not arise from large-scale flows of neutral gas. The high column densities involved are in turn more similar to what is seen in DLAs associated with gamma-ray burst afterglows (GRB-DLAs), which are known to occur close to star-forming regions. This indicates that ESDLAs arise from a line of sight passing at very small impact parameters from the host galaxy, as observed in nearby galaxies. This is also supported by simple theoretical considerations and recent high-z hydrodynamical simulations. We strongly substantiate this picture by the first statistical detection of Ly α emission with L ESDLA (Ly α) (0.6 ± 0.2) × 10 42 erg s −1 in the core of ESDLAs (corresponding to about 0.1 L at z ∼ 2−3), obtained through stacking the fibre spectra (of radius 1 corresponding to ∼8 kpc at z ∼ 2.5). Statistical errors on the Ly α luminosity are of the order of 0.1 × 10 42 erg s −1 but we caution that the measured Ly α luminosity may be overestimated by ∼35% due to sky light residuals and/or FUV emission from the quasar host and that we have neglected flux-calibration uncertainties. We estimate a more conservative uncertainty of 0.2 × 10 42 erg s −1 . The properties of the Ly α line (luminosity distribution, velocity width and velocity offset compared to systemic redshift) are very similar to that of the population of Lyman-α emitting galaxies (LAEs) with L LAE (Ly α) ≥ 10 41 erg s −1 detected in long-slit spectroscopy or narrow-band imaging surveys. By matching the incidence of ESDLAs with that of the LAEs population, we estimate the high column density gas radius to be about r gas = 2.5 kpc, i.e., significantly smaller than the radius corresponding to the BOSS fibre aperture, making fibre losses likely negligible. Finally, the average measured Ly α luminosity indicates a star-formation rate consistent with the Schmidt-Kennicutt law, SFR (M yr −1 ) ≈ 0.6/ f esc , where f esc < 1 is the Ly α escape fraction. Assuming the typical escape fraction of LAEs, f esc ∼ 0.3, the Schmidt-Kennicutt law implies a galaxy radius of about r gal ≈ 2.5 kpc. Finally, we note that possible overestimation of the Ly α emission would result in both smaller r gas and r gal . Our results support a close association between LAEs and stro...

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A Population of Faint Extended Line Emitters and the Host Galaxies of Optically Thick QSO Absorption Systems

Abstract: Original article can be found at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/apj Copyright American Astronomical Society [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA

Cited by 233 publications

References 104 publications

Galaxy counterparts of metal-rich damped Lyα absorbers: the case of J205922.4−052842★

Galaxy counterparts of metal-rich damped Lyα absorbers: the case of J205922.4−052842★

Uncovering strong MgII absorbing galaxies

A connection between extremely strong damped Lyman-αsystems and Lyman-αemitting galaxies at small impact parameters

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