Distinct Abundance Patterns in Multiple Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies: Evidence for Truncated Star Formation?

Abstract

(abridged) Following our previous work on metal abundances of a double damped Ly-alpha system with a line-of-sight separation ~2000 km/s (Ellison & Lopez 2001), we present VLT UVES abundances of 3 new systems spanning a total of \~6000 km/s at z~2.5 toward the southern QSO CTQ247. These abundances are supplemented with echelle observations of another `double' damped Ly-alpha system in the literature. We propose a definition in terms of velocity shift of the sub-class 'multiple damped Ly-alpha system', which is motivated by its possible connection with large-scale structure. We find that the abundance ratio alpha/Fe is systematically low in multiple systems compared with single systems, and with a small scatter. The same behavior is found in 2 more single DLA systems taken from the literature that show evidence of belonging to a galaxy group. After a careful investigation of possible sources of systematic errors, we conclude that the low alpha/Fe ratios in multiple DLAs have a nucleosynthetic origin. We suggest that they could be explained by reduced star formation in multiple damped Ly-alpha systems, possibly due to environmental effects.

arXiv commentin press at A&A

References in corpus (45)

• Radiative Transfer in a Clumpy Universe: II. The Utraviolet Extragalactic Background
• Differential Galaxy Evolution in Cluster and Field Galaxies at z=0.3
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The environmental dependence of galaxy star formation rates near clusters
• A Large Structure of Galaxies At Redshift z~3 and its Cosmological Implications
• A Spectroscopic Catalog of 10 Distant Rich Clusters of Galaxies
• On The Cosmic Origins Of Carbon And Nitrogen
• Abundances at High Redshifts: the Chemical Enrichment History of Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies
• Galaxy Clusters in Hubble Volume Simulations: Cosmological Constraints from Sky Survey Populations
• Star Formation in Cluster Galaxies at 0.2<z<0.55
• Metal Abundances at z < 1.5: Fresh Clues to the Chemical Enrichment History of Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• More Satellites of Spiral Galaxies
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: II. The Implications
• The CORALS Survey I: New Estimates of the Number Density and Gas Content of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems Free from Dust Bias
• Chemical Abundances of the Damped Lya Systems at z>1.5
• The Abundances of Nitrogen and Oxygen in Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• Molecular hydrogen, deuterium and metal abundances in the damped Ly-alpha system at z = 3.025 toward QSO 0347-3819
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: I. The Data
• Ionization Properties and Elemental Abundances in Damped Ly alpha Systems
• A low global star formation rate in the rich galaxy cluster AC114 at z=0.32
• Absorption Systems in the Spectra of 66 z > 4 Quasars
• Dust depletion and abundance pattern in damped Lyman-alpha systems: a sample of Mn and Ti abundances at z<2.2
• A Keck HIRES Investigation of the Metal Abundances and Kinematics of the z=2.46 Damped Lya System Toward Q0201+365
• The N/Si Abundance Ratio in Fifteen Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies: Implications for the Origin of Nitrogen
• Sulphur abundances in disk stars: a correlation with silicon
• First Comparison of Ionization and Metallicity in Two Lines of Sight Toward HE 1104-1805 AB at z=1.66
• UVES observations of QSO 0000-2620: Argon and Phosphorus abundances in the dust-free damped Ly-alpha system at zabs = 3.3901
• Implications of 21cm observations for damped Ly-$\alpha$ systems
• Metal abundances and ionization conditions in a possibly dust-free damped Ly-alpha system at z=2.3
• An Imaging and Spectroscopic Study of the z=3.38639 Damped Lyman Alpha System in Q0201+1120: Clues to Star Formation Rate at High Redshift
• On the relation between high-redshift starburst galaxies and damped Ly-alpha systems
• Chemical Evolution of Damped Ly alpha galaxies: The [S/Zn] abundance ratio at redshift z > 2
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database III. An Empirical Study of Photoionization in the Damped Lya System Toward GB1759+7539
• Galactic Chemical Abundances at z>3 I: First Results from the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager
• UVES observations of a damped Ly-alpha system at z_abs = 4.466 towards the quasar APM BR J0307-4945
• The Las Campanas/AAT Rich Cluster Survey I: Precision and Reliability of the Photometric Catalogue
• A scaling law for interstellar depletions
• Unusual Metal Abundances in a Pair of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems at z~2
• High-Redshift Superclustering of QSO Absorption Line Systems on 100 Mpc Scales
• New detections of Mn, Ti and Mg in damped Ly-alpha systems: Toward reconciling the dust/nucleosynthesis degeneracy
• Chemical evolution and depletion pattern in Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems
• First Investigation of the Clustering Environment of Damped Lyman Alpha Absorbers at z=4
• Kinematics of Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field South: Discovery of a Very Massive Spiral at z=0.6
• Large Scale Structure at z=1.2 Outlined by MgII Absorbers
• Galaxies Associated with z~4 Damped Lya Systems: I. Imaging and Photometric Selection
• An astrophysical oscillator strength for the SII 94.7 nm resonance line and S abundances in DLAs

Cited by in corpus (44)

• The SDSS Damped Lya Survey: Data Release 3
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems out to z~5
• The Age-Metallicity Relation of the Universe in Neutral Gas: The First 100 Damped Lya Systems
• The VLT-UVES survey for molecular hydrogen in high-redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems
• The host of GRB 030323 at z=3.372: a very high column density DLA system with a low metallicity
• C, N, O Abundances in the Most Metal-Poor Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• Sulphur and zinc abundances in Galactic halo stars revisited
• Sulphur and zinc abundances in Galactic stars and damped Lyman-alpha systems
• A Homogeneous Sample of Sub-DLAs III: Total Gas Mass Omega_(HI+HeII) at z>2
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Element Abundances in Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies and Implications for the Global Metallicity-Redshift Relation
• The Ucsd/Keck Damped Lya Abundance Database: A Decade of High Resolution Spectroscopy
• A Homogeneous Sample of Sub-DLAs II: Statistical, Kinematic and Chemical Properties
• The spin temperature of high-redshift damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• Spectroscopy of GRB 050505 at z=4.275: A logN(HI)=22.1 DLA Host Galaxy and the Nature of the Progenitor
• A comprehensive set of elemental abundances in damped Ly-alpha systems: revealing the nature of these high-redshift galaxies
• The nature of the dwarf starforming galaxy associated with GRB 060218 / SN2006aj
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - VI. Sub-Damped Lyman-$\alpha$ Metallicity Measurements and the Circum-Galactic Medium
• The Role of Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers in the Cosmic Evolution of Metals
• Metals and Dust in Intermediate-redshift Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies
• The evolution of neutral gas in damped Lyman $\alpha$ systems from the XQ-100 survey
• Bimodality in Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at z < 0.5, and Implications for Galaxy Chemical Evolution
• Galaxy Clusters in the Line of Sight to Background Quasars: I. Survey Design and Incidence of MgII Absorbers at Cluster Redshifts
• First Stars XIV. Sulfur abundances in extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars
• The connection between metallicity and metal-line kinematics in (sub-)damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Chemical abundances of damped Lyman alpha systems in the XQ-100 survey
• The chemistry of the most metal-rich damped Lyman $\alpha$ systems at z$\sim 2$ II. Context with the Local Group
• Probing the metallicity and ionization state of the circumgalactic medium at z~6 and beyond with OI absorption
• Deuterium at high-redshift: Primordial abundance in the zabs = 2.621 damped Ly-alpha system towards CTQ247
• A study of low-metallicity DLAs at high redshift and C II* as a probe of their physical conditions
• Coincident, 100 kpc-scale damped Lyman alpha absorption towards a binary QSO: how large are galaxies at z ~ 3?
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - III. Evidence of Bimodality in the [N/alpha] Distribution
• The Chemical Evolution Of High Z Galaxies From The Relative Abundances Of N, Si, S, And Fe In Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - I. Dataset and New N_HI Measurements of Damped Absorbers
• Element Abundances at High-redshift: Magellan MIKE Observations of sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at 1.7 < z <2.4
• An excess of damped Lyman alpha galaxies near QSOs
• Chemical Evolution of Dwarf Irregular and Blue Compact Galaxies
• Relationships between the HI 21-cm line strength, MgII equivalent width and metallicity in damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems
• The HII Regions of the Damped Lyman alpha Absorber SBS 1543+593
• Double-Damped Lyman Alpha Absorption: A Possible Large Neutral Hydrogen Gas Filament Near Redshift z=1
• Abundances and kinematics of a candidate sub-damped Lyman-alpha galaxy toward PHL 1226
• The most metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at z>1.5 I: The Data
• Reconstructing the intergalactic UV background with QSO absorption lines
• KBSS-InCLOSE I: Design and First Results from the Inner CGM of QSO Line Of Sight Emitting Galaxies at z~2-3