C<scp>ii</scp>* Absorption in Damped Lyα Systems. II. A New Window on the Star Formation History of the Universe

Wolfe, Arthur M.; Gawiser, Eric; Prochaska, J. Xavier

doi:10.1086/376521

Cited by 115 publications

(166 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(128 reference statements)

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“…Quite interestingly, the high mean metallicity that we derive may help to solve the "missing metal" problem pointed out by Wolfe et al (2003) in their work on the Star Formation Rates (SFRs) in DLAs: the mass of metals produced by z 2.5, inferred from their SFRs, is 30 times larger than detected in absorption in DLAs.…”

Section: The Metal Content Of Dlasmentioning

confidence: 70%

The dust obscuration bias in damped Lyman αsystems

Vladilo

Péroux

2005

A&A

141

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We present a new study of the effects of quasar obscuration on the statistics of Damped Ly α (DLA) systems. We show that the extinction of any Galactic or extragalactic H i region, A λ , increases linearly with the column density of zinc, with a turning point ∂A λ /∂(log N Zn ) = 1, above which background sources are suddenly obscured. We derive a relation A λ = A λ (N H , Z, z) between the extinction of a DLA system and its H i column density, N H , metallicity, Z, fraction of iron in dust, f Fe (Z), and redshift, z. From this relation we estimate the fraction of DLA systems missed as a consequence of their own extinction in magnitude-limited surveys. We derive a method for recovering the true frequency distributions of N H and Z in DLAs, f N H and f Z , using the biased distributions measured in the redshift range where the observations have sufficient statistics (1.8 ≤ z ≤ 3). By applying our method we find that the well-known empirical thresholds of DLA column densities, N Zn < ∼ 10 13.1 atoms cm −2 and N H i < ∼ 10 22 atoms cm −2 , can be successfully explained in terms of the obscuration effect without tuning of the local dust parameters. The obscuration has a modest effect on the distribution of quasar apparent magnitudes, but plays an important role in shaping the statistical distributions of DLAs. The exact estimate of the bias is still limited by the paucity of the data ( 40 zinc measurements at 1.8 ≤ z ≤ 3). We find that the fraction of DLAs missed as a consequence of obscuration is ∼30% to 50%, consistent with the results of surveys of radio-selected quasars. By modelling the metallicity distribution with a Schechter function we find that the mean metallicity can be ∼5 to 6 times higher than the value commonly reported for DLAs at z ∼ 2.3.

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Section: The Metal Content Of Dlasmentioning

confidence: 70%

The dust obscuration bias in damped Lyman αsystems

Vladilo

Péroux

2005

A&A

141

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“…Nevertheless, the presence of heavy metals in all QSO-DLA (and dust in the majority) indicates at least prior star formation . Furthermore, the observation of C ii Ã absorption suggests heating of the ISM by far-UV photons from ongoing star formation in at least half of the sample (Wolfe et al 2003(Wolfe et al , 2004. Finally, a handful of QSO-DLA have been detected in emission and exhibit properties similar to low-luminosity LBGs (Møller et al 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…where t ¼ 0:4 locally (see, e.g., Wolfe et al 2005 and discussion therein). For a direct measurement of t for QSO-DLA see also Chen & Lanzetta (2003).…”

Section: Modeling the H I And Metal Distributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling the Metallicity Distributions of Gamma‐Ray Burst, Damped Lyα, and Lyman Break Galaxies atz≈ 3

Fynbo¹,

Prochaska²,

Sommer–Larsen³

et al. 2008

Astrophysical Journal

163

219

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We test the hypothesis that the host galaxies of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as well as quasar-selected damped Ly ( DLA) systems are drawn from the population of UV-selected star-forming, high-z galaxies (generally referred to as Lyman break galaxies). Specifically, we compare the metallicity distributions of the GRB and DLA populations against simple models where these galaxies are drawn randomly from the distribution of star-forming galaxies according to their star formation rate and H i cross section, respectively. We find that it is possible to match both observational distributions assuming very simple and constrained relations between luminosity, metallicity, and H i sizes. The simple model can be tested by observing the luminosity distribution of GRB host galaxies and by measuring the luminosity and impact parameters of DLA-selected galaxies as a function of metallicity. Our results support the expectation that GRB and DLA samples, in contrast with magnitude-limited surveys, provide an almost complete census of z % 3 star-forming galaxies that are not heavily obscured.

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“…the Lyα forest) and therefore indicate previous star formation. Thirdly, high SFRs are inferred from the detection of the C II * λ1335.7 Å absorption line in DLAs (Wolfe, Gawiser & Prochaska 2003). However, despite this evidence for star formation, actual molecules like H 2 , a precursor for star formation, have been detected in relatively few DLAs, and by highly biased targeting strategies.…”

Section: Star Formation and Molecular Hydrogen In Dla Galaxiesmentioning

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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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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Cii* Absorption in Damped Lyα Systems. II. A New Window on the Star Formation History of the Universe

Cited by 115 publications

References 73 publications

The dust obscuration bias in damped Lyman αsystems

The dust obscuration bias in damped Lyman αsystems

Reconciling the Metallicity Distributions of Gamma‐Ray Burst, Damped Lyα, and Lyman Break Galaxies atz≈ 3

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

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