Galaxies Associated with z~4 Damped Lya Systems: I. Imaging and Photometric Selection

Abstract

This paper describes the acquisition and analysis of imaging data for the identification of galaxies associated with z~4 damped Lya systems. We present deep BRI images of three fields known to contain four z~4 damped systems. We discuss the reduction and calibration of the data, detail the color criteria used to identify z~4 galaxies, and present a photometric redshift analysis to complement the color selection. We have found no galaxy candidates closer to the QSO than 7'' which could be responsible for the damped Lya systems. Assuming that at least one of the galaxies is not directly beneath the QSO, we set an upper limit on this damped Lya system of L < L*/4. Finally, we have established a web site to release these imaging data to the public.

12 pages, 6 embedded figures (3 color), 9 jpg figures. Higher quality ps versions of the images and the fits data are available at http://kingpin.ucsd.edu/~dlaimg, Accepted to the Astronomical Journal Jan 22, 2002

References in corpus (6)

• Surveys for z > 3 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorption Systems
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: I. The Data
• Metallicity Evolution in the Early Universe
• NICMOS imaging search for damped Lya galaxies
• Photometry and Photometric Redshifts of Faint Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field South NICMOS Field
• First Investigation of the Clustering Environment of Damped Lyman Alpha Absorbers at z=4

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• Distinct Abundance Patterns in Multiple Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies: Evidence for Truncated Star Formation?
• [CII] 158 Micron Emission from z~4 HI Absorption-Selected Galaxies
• Heavy Element Production in Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Cold Neutral Gas in a z=4.2 Damped Lyman-alpha System: The Fuel for Star Formation
• Survey for Galaxies Associated with z~3 Damped Lyman alpha Systems I: Spectroscopic Calibration of u'BVRI Photometric Selection
• A search for H$\alpha$ emission in high-metallicity damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems at $z\sim 2.4$
• The Deep Optical Imaging of the Extended Groth Strip
• A massive disk galaxy at z>3 along the sightline of QSO 1508+5714