[CII] 158 Micron Emission from z~4 HI Absorption-Selected Galaxies

Abstract

We report on a search for the [CII] 158 micron emission line from galaxies associated with four high-metallicity damped Ly-alpha absorbers (DLAs) at z ~ 4 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). We detect [CII] 158 micron emission from galaxies at the DLA redshift in three fields, with one field showing two [CII] emitters. Combined with previous results, we now have detected [CII] 158 micron emission from five of six galaxies associated with targeted high-metallicity DLAs at z ~ 4. The galaxies have relatively large impact parameters, ~16 - 45 kpc, [CII] 158 micron line luminosities of (0.36 - 30) x 10^8 Lsun, and rest-frame far-infrared properties similar to those of luminous Lyman-break galaxies, with star-formation rates of ~7 - 110 Msun yr-1. Comparing the absorption and emission line profiles yields a remarkable agreement between the line centroids, indicating that the DLA traces gas at velocities similar to that of the [CII] 158 micron emission. This disfavors a scenario where the DLA arises from gas in a companion galaxy. These observations highlight ALMA's unique ability to uncover a high redshift galaxy population that has largely eluded detection for decades.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJL, 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (36)

• How Do Galaxies Get Their Gas?
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• Cool Gas in High Redshift Galaxies
• Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• The applicability of FIR fine-structure lines as Star Formation Rate tracers over wide ranges of metallicities and galaxy types
• The Calibration of Monochromatic Far-Infrared Star Formation Rate Indicators
• On the Kinematics of the Damped Lyman Alpha Protogalaxies
• Column density distribution and cosmological mass density of neutral gas: Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Data Release 9
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems out to z~5
• An ALMA [CII] survey of 27 quasars at z>5.94
• Molecular gas and dust around a radio-quiet quasar at redshift 4.7
• Reconciling the local galaxy population with damped Ly-alpha cross sections and metal abundances
• Are high-redshift DLA galxies Lyman-break galaxies?
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: I. The Data
• The Rapid Decline in Metallicity of Damped Ly-alpha Systems at z~5
• Mass-metallicity relation from z=5 to the present: Evidence for a transition in the mode of galaxy growth at z=2.6 due to the end of sustained primordial gas infall
• Galaxy Counterparts of metal-rich Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers - I: The case of the z=2.35 DLA towards Q2222-0946
• The Fundamental Plane of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• Highest Redshift Image of Neutral Hydrogen in Emission: A CHILES Detection of a Starbursting Galaxy at z=0.376
• Consensus report on 25 years of searches for damped Ly$\alpha$ galaxies in emission: Confirming their metallicity-luminosity relation at $z\gtrsim 2$
• Verifying the mass-metallicity relation in damped Lyman-alpha selected galaxies at 0.1<z<3.2
• The Keck+Magellan Survey for Lyman Limit Absorption I: The Frequency Distribution of Super Lyman Limit Systems
• Reproducing the Kinematics of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems
• The anatomy of an extreme starburst within 1.3Gyr of the Big Bang revealed by ALMA
• Directly imaging damped Ly-alpha galaxies at z>2. III: The star formation rates of neutral gas reservoirs at z~2.7
• [CII] 158 micron Emission from the Host Galaxies of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• A Fabry-Perot Imaging Search for Lyman-alpha Emission in Quasar Absorbers at z ~ 2.4
• Witnessing galaxy assembly at the edge of the reionization epoch
• The gas mass of star-forming galaxies at $z\approx 1.3$
• Molecular Emission from a Galaxy Associated with a z~2.2 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber
• First Connection between Cold Gas in Emission and Absorption: CO Emission from a Galaxy-Quasar Pair
• Massive, Absorption-selected Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts
• ALMA + VLT observations of a Damped Lyman-α absorbing galaxy: Massive, wide CO emission, gas-rich but with very low SFR
• ALMA observations of a metal-rich damped Lyα absorber at z = 2.5832: evidence for strong galactic winds in a galaxy group
• ALMACAL V: Absorption-selected galaxies with evidence for excited ISMs
• Galaxies Associated with z~4 Damped Lya Systems: I. Imaging and Photometric Selection

Cited by in corpus (34)

• The Evolution of the Baryons Associated with Galaxies Averaged over Cosmic Time and Space
• A Cold, Massive, Rotating Disk Galaxy 1.5 Billion Years after the Big Bang
• Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyman alpha galaxies at z~3
• The ALMA REBELS Survey: The Cosmic HI Gas Mass Density in Galaxies at $z\approx 7$
• Neutral CGM as damped Lyα absorbers at high redshift
• Proximate Molecular Quasar Absorbers: Excess of damped H2 systems at zabs~zQSO in SDSS DR14
• The cosmic build-up of dust and metals. Accurate abundances from GRB-selected star-forming galaxies at $1.7<z<6.3$
• Into the Lyα jungle: exploring the circumgalactic medium of galaxies at z ~ 4-5 with MUSE
• The nature of the Milky Way's stellar halo revealed by the three integrals of motion
• The ALMA-CRISTAL survey. Discovery of a 15 kpc-long gas plume in a $z=4.54$ Lyman-$\alpha$ blob
• High Molecular Gas Masses in Absorption-selected Galaxies at $z\approx 2$
• MUSE-ALMA Haloes VII: Survey Science Goals & Design, Data Processing and Final Catalogues
• Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers in Star-forming Galaxies at z < 0.15 Detected with the Hubble Space Telescope and Implications for Galaxy Evolution
• ALMA [CII] 158um imaging of an HI-Selected Major Merger at z~4
• A Long Stream of Metal-Poor Cool Gas around a Massive Starburst Galaxy at z = 2.67
• Understanding the early stages of galaxy formation using very metal-poor stars from the Hamburg/ESO survey
• A Giant Disk Galaxy Two Billion Years After The Big Bang
• Dynamical modelling and origin of gas turbulence in z $\sim$ 4.5 galaxies
• The nature of H{\sc i}-absorption-selected galaxies at $z\approx 4$
• A survey of Ly$\alpha$ emission around Damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers at $z\approx 2$ with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager
• Damped Lyman-$\alpha$ absorbers and atomic hydrogen in galaxies: the view of the GAEA model
• A Massive, Dusty HI-Absorption-Selected Galaxy at $z\approx 2.46$ Identified in a CO Emission Survey
• Jansky Very Large Array detections of CO(1-0) emission in HI-absorption-selected galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$
• Using Machine Learning to Find Ghostly Damped Ly$\alpha$ Systems in SDSS DR14
• The [NII] 205 $\mu$m line emission from high-z SMGs and QSOs
• MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) -- VI. The cool and enriched gas environment of z$\gtrsim$3 Ly$\alpha$ emitters
• The Qz5 Survey (I): How the HI Mass Density of the Universe Evolves With Cosmic Time
• Discovery of a damped Ly$\alpha$ absorber originating in a spectacular interacting dwarf galaxy pair at $z=0.026$
• A [CII]-158-micron Survey of DLA galaxies at z~4: Observations of Dense and Metal-Enriched Neutral Gas within the Circumgalactic Medium of Star-Forming Galaxies
• On the Metallicities and Kinematics of the Circumgalactic Media of Damped Ly$\alpha$ Systems at $z\sim 2.5$
• ALMA band 8 observations of DLA2233+131 at z=3.150
• Measuring the HI content of individual galaxies out to the epoch of reionization with [CII]
• MUSE-ALMA Haloes XIII. Molecular gas in $z\sim 0.5$ HI-selected galaxies
• Star-Formation in Neutral Hydrogen Gas Reservoirs at Cosmic Noon