The most metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at z>1.5 I: The Data

Abstract

We present HIRES observations for 30 damped Lyman alpha systems, selected on the basis of their large metal column densities from previous, lower resolution data. The measured metal column densities for Fe, Zn, S, Si, Cr, Mn, and Ni are provided for these 30 systems. Combined with previously observed large metal column density damped Lyman alpha systems, we present a sample of 44 damped Lyman alpha systems observed with high resolution spectrographs (R~30000). These damped Lyman alpha systems probe the most chemically evolved systems at redshifts greater than 1.5. We discuss the context of our sample with the general damped Lyman alpha population, demonstrating that we are probing the top 10% of metal column densities with our sample. In a companion paper, we will present an analysis of the sample's elemental abundances in the context of galactic chemical enrichment.

Accepted for publication in PASP. 54 pages, 36 figures. Please contact Trystyn Berg to view Figures 3-32 if desired

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Chemical abundances of damped Lyman alpha systems in the XQ-100 survey
• High Molecular Gas Masses in Absorption-selected Galaxies at $z\approx 2$
• Sub-damped Lyman alpha systems in the XQ-100 survey II -- Chemical evolution at 2.4<z<4.3
• A survey of Ly$\alpha$ emission around Damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers at $z\approx 2$ with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager
• A Massive, Dusty HI-Absorption-Selected Galaxy at $z\approx 2.46$ Identified in a CO Emission Survey
• Investigation of the Prompt SNe Ia progenitor nature through the analysis of the chemical composition of globular clusters and circumgalactic clouds
• KBSS-InCLOSE I: Design and First Results from the Inner CGM of QSO Line Of Sight Emitting Galaxies at z~2-3
• Constraining the Metallicities of Damped Ly$\alpha$ Systems Using Extinction Curves