Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Element Abundances in Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies and Implications for the Global Metallicity-Redshift Relation

Abstract

Most models of cosmic chemical evolution predict that the mass-weighted mean interstellar metallicity of galaxies should rise with time from a low value $\sim 1/30$ solar at $z\sim 3$ to a nearly solar value at $z=0$. In the absence of any selection effects, the damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) in quasar spectra are expected to show such a rise in global metallicity. However, it has been difficult to determine whether or not DLAs show this effect, primarily because of the very small number of DLA metallicity measurements at low redshifts. In an attempt to put tighter constraints on the low-redshift end of the DLA metallicity-redshift relation, we have observed Zn II and Cr II lines in four DLAs at $0.09<z<0.52$, using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These observations have provided the first constraints on Zn abundances in DLAs with $z<0.4$. In all the three DLAs for which our observations offer meaningful constraints on the metallicity, the data suggest that the metallicities are much lower than the solar value. These results are consistent with recent imaging studies indicating that these DLAs may be associated with dwarf or low surface brightness galaxies. We combine our results with higher redshift data from the literature to estimate the global mean metallicity-redshift relation for DLAs. We find that the global mean metallicity shows at most a slow increase with decreasing redshift. ...(Please see the paper for the complete abstract).

56 pages, including 13 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (65)

• High Redshift Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field. Color Selection and Star Formation History to z=4
• First stars V - Abundance patterns from C to Zn and supernova yields in the early Galaxy
• The CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY XIII: The luminosity density and star-formation history of the Universe to z ~ 1
• The Nature of High-Redshift Galaxies
• Nucleosynthesis of Zinc and Iron-Peak Elements in Pop III Type II Supernovae : Comparison with abundances of Very Metal-Poor Halo Stars
• The Galactic Thick Disk Stellar Abundances
• Abundances at High Redshifts: the Chemical Enrichment History of Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies
• 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
• Cosmic Histories of Stars, Gas, Heavy Elements, and Dust
• Discovery of Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at Redshifts Less Than 1.65 and Results on their Incidence and Cosmological Mass Density
• Metal Abundances at z < 1.5: Fresh Clues to the Chemical Enrichment History of Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• 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
• Dust in High Redshift Galaxies
• Abundances of Cu and Zn in metal-poor stars: clues for Galaxy evolution
• Protogalactic Disk Models of Damped Lya Kinematics
• Sulphur and zinc abundances in Galactic stars and damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Si and Mn Abundances in Damped Lya Systems with Low Dust Content
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: I. The Data
• The ESI/KeckII Damped Lya Abundance Database
• Ionization Properties and Elemental Abundances in Damped Ly alpha Systems
• Low-Redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Galaxies Toward the Quasars B2 0827+243, PKS 0952+179, PKS 1127-145, and PKS 1629+120
• A Homogeneous Sample of Sub-DLAs I: Construction of the Sample and Chemical Abundance Measurements
• The Nature of Damped Ly-alpha Absorbing Galaxies at z<=1--A Photometric Redshift Survey of Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers
• Dust and Diffuse Interstellar Bands in the z_a = 0.524 Absorption System toward AO 0235+164
• CII* Absorption in Damped Lyman Alpha Systems: (II) A New Window on the Star Formation History of the Universe
• Metallicity Evolution in the Early Universe
• The Explosive Yields Produced by the First Generation of Core Collapse Supernovae and the Chemical Composition of Extremely Metal Poor Stars
• A Keck HIRES Investigation of the Metal Abundances and Kinematics of Three Damped Lya Systems Toward Q2206-199
• Early stages of Nitrogen enrichment in galaxies: Clues from measurements in damped Lyman alpha systems
• Dust-reddening and gravitational lensing of SDSS QSOs due to foreground damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Dust depletion and abundance pattern in damped Lyman-alpha systems: a sample of Mn and Ti abundances at z<2.2
• A comprehensive set of elemental abundances in damped Ly-alpha systems: revealing the nature of these high-redshift galaxies
• UVES observations of QSO 0000-2620: oxygen and zinc abundances in the Damped Ly-alpha galaxy at z_abs=3.3901
• Molecular hydrogen at z=1.973 toward Q0013-004: Dust depletion pattern in damped Lyman-alpha systems
• First Comparison of Ionization and Metallicity in Two Lines of Sight Toward HE 1104-1805 AB at z=1.66
• Metals and Dust in Intermediate-redshift Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies
• Cu and Zn in the early Galaxy
• Ionized Gas in Damped Lyman-alpha Systems and Its Effects on Elemental Abundance Studies
• Discovery of z=0.0912 and z=0.2212 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorption Line Systems Toward the Quasar OI 363: Limits on the Nature of Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies
• Metal abundances and ionization conditions in a possibly dust-free damped Ly-alpha system at z=2.3
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-Alpha Galaxies
• HI 21cm absoprtion in two low redshift damped Ly-alpha systems
• HI 21cm absorption in low z damped lyman-alpha systems
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database III. An Empirical Study of Photoionization in the Damped Lya System Toward GB1759+7539
• The z=0.0912 and z=0.2212 Damped Lyman Alpha Galaxies Along the Sight-Line Toward the Quasar OI 363
• Galactic Chemical Abundances at z>3 I: First Results from the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager
• Abundance Patterns of Heavy Elements in Damped Lyman-Alpha Galaxies
• The early build-up of dust in galaxies: A study of Damped Ly alpha Systems
• The Number Density of 0.6 < z < 1.7 MgII Systems from CORALS: Observational Biases at Intermediate Redshift
• Distinct Abundance Patterns in Multiple Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies: Evidence for Truncated Star Formation?
• The [Zn/Fe] -- [Fe/H] trend for disk and halo stars
• The Contribution of HI-rich Galaxies to the Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber Population at z=0
• Zinc as a tracer of metallicity evolution of Damped Lyman alpha systems
• Star Formation and Chemical Evolution in Damped Lya Clouds
• Unusual Metal Abundances in a Pair of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems at z~2
• Constraints on Early Nucleosynthesis from the Abundance Pattern of a Damped Ly-alpha System at z = 2.626
• Detection of a multi-phase ISM at $z=0.2212$
• New Damped Lya Metallicities from ESI Spectroscopy of Five Palomar Sky Survey Quasars
• A new measurement of zinc metallicity in a DLA at z=3.35
• The Luminosity Function and Surface Brightness Distribution of HI Selected Galaxies
• Lost and Found: The Damped Lyman Alpha Absorbers in the QSO OI 363
• Metal abundances and kinematics of quasar absorbers.- I. Absorption systems toward J2233-606
• Chemical Enrichment at High Redshifts: Understanding the Nature of Damped Ly$\alpha$ Systems in Hierarchical Models

Cited by in corpus (111)

• New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy
• AMAZE. I. The evolution of the mass-metallicity relation at z>3
• A Unified Representation of Gas-Phase Element Depletions in the Interstellar Medium
• Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems out to z~5
• Formation of the first nuclear clusters and massive black holes at high redshift
• Simulations of Cosmic Chemical Enrichment
• Average Extinction Curves and Relative Abundances for QSO Absorption Line Systems at 1 <= z_abs < 2
• Reconciling the local galaxy population with damped Ly-alpha cross sections and metal abundances
• Intensity Mapping of the [CII] Fine Structure Line during the Epoch of Reionization
• Gas Metallicities in the Extended Disks of NGC 1512 and NGC 3621. Chemical Signatures of Metal Mixing or Enriched Gas Accretion?
• Star Formation History up to z = 7.4: Implications for Gamma-Ray Bursts and the Cosmic Metallicity Evolution
• Abundance Profiles and Kinematics of Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbing Galaxies at z < 0.65
• A Homogeneous Sample of Sub-DLAs III: Total Gas Mass Omega_(HI+HeII) at z>2
• The Rapid Decline in Metallicity of Damped Ly-alpha Systems at z~5
• The Fundamental Plane of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• Galactic and Circumgalactic OVI and its Impact on the Cosmological Metal and Baryon Budgets at 2<z<3.5
• Zn and Cr abundances in damped Lyman alpha systems from the CORALS survey
• Verifying the mass-metallicity relation in damped Lyman-alpha selected galaxies at 0.1<z<3.2
• The spin temperature of high-redshift damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - I. New Detections and Limits for Intervening and Associated Absorbers
• The missing metals problem. III How many metals are expelled from galaxies?
• Selecting damped Lyman-alpha systems through CaII absorption. I: Dust depletions and reddening at z~1
• 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
• The Metal-Strong Damped Lyman-alpha Systems
• The Optical - Infrared Colors of CORALS QSOs: Searching for Dust Reddening Associated With High Redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• The SDSS-DR12 large-scale cross-correlation of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems with the Lyman Alpha Forest
• The Magellan Uniform Survey of Damped Lyman alpha Systems I: Cosmic Metallicity Evolution
• Metallicity evolution of AGNs from UV emission-lines based on a new index
• Galaxy Group at z=0.3 Associated with the Damped Lyman Alpha System Towards Quasar Q1127-145
• A search for HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII absorbers in the redshift desert
• A MIKE + UVES survey of Sub-Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at z<1.5
• The Most Metal-Rich Intervening Quasar Absorber Known
• Intergalactic Lyman continuum photon budget in the past 5 billion years
• The First Observations of Low-Redshift Damped Lyman-α Systems with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: Chemical Abundances and Affiliated Galaxies
• A Fabry-Perot Imaging Search for Lyman-alpha Emission in Quasar Absorbers at z ~ 2.4
• Metal-rich Damped/sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Quasar Absorbers at z<1
• Extinction and metal column density of HI regions up to redshift z~2
• An efficient technique for pre-selecting low redshift damped Lyman alpha systems
• The COS CGM Compendium. III: Metallicity and Physical Properties of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium at z<1
• The color excess of quasars with intervening DLA systems- Analysis of the SDSS data release five
• High redshift formation and evolution of central massive objects I: model description
• Elemental Abundance Measurements in Low-redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Absorbers
• The First Type Ia Supernovae: An Empirical Approach to Taming Evolutionary Effects In Dark Energy Surveys from SNe Ia at z>2
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at z < 0.5, and Implications for Galaxy Chemical Evolution
• The nature of damped Lyman alpha and sub-damped Lyman alpha absorbers
• The COS CGM Compendium. II: Metallicities of the Partial and Lyman Limit Systems at z<1
• A study of the circum-galactic medium at z ~ 0.6 using DLA-galaxies
• New abundance determinations in z < 1.5 QSO absorbers: seven sub-DLAs and one DLA
• Metal abundances at z<1.5: new measurements in sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers
• The connection between metallicity and metal-line kinematics in (sub-)damped Lyman-alpha systems
• A Comparison of Absorption and Emission Line Abundances in the Nearby Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxy SBS 1543+593
• Do Damped and Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers Arise in Galaxies of Different Masses?
• The chemistry of the most metal-rich damped Lyman $\alpha$ systems at z$\sim 2$ II. Context with the Local Group
• Polarization of absorption lines as a diagnostics of circumstellar, interstellar and intergalactic magnetic fields: Fine structure atoms
• Probing the metallicity and ionization state of the circumgalactic medium at z~6 and beyond with OI absorption
• Atomic Data Revisions for Transitions Relevant to Observations of Interstellar, Circumgalactic, and Intergalactic Matter
• An HST/COS survey of molecular hydrogen in DLAs & sub-DLAs at z < 1: Molecular fraction and excitation temperature
• CRASH3: cosmological radiative transfer through metals
• The chemical compositions of 10 new sub-DLAs and strong Lyman-limit systems at z < 1.5
• Measurements of CaII absorption, metals, and dust in a sample of z~1 DLAs and subDLAs
• Spatially Resolved Metal Gas Clouds
• A metallicity-spin temperature relation in damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• The Mean Metal-line Absorption Spectrum of DLAs in BOSS
• ALMA + VLT observations of a Damped Lyman-α absorbing galaxy: Massive, wide CO emission, gas-rich but with very low SFR
• Discovery of 21cm absorption in a $z_{\mathrm{abs}}=2.289$ DLA towards TXS 0311+430: The first low spin temperature absorber at z > 1
• Element Abundances at High-redshift: Magellan MIKE Observations of sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at 1.7 < z <2.4
• A Kennicutt-Schmidt Law for Intervening Absorption Line Systems
• New Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle Observations of z<1.5 sub-damped Lyman-alpha systems
• New HI 21-cm absorbers at low and intermediate redshifts
• The host galaxies of strong CaII QSO absorption systems at z<0.5
• A model for the metallicity evolution of damped Lyman-alpha systems
• HE 0515-4414 - an unusual sub-damped Ly alpha system revisited
• Limits on Reddening and Gas-to-Dust Ratios for Seven Intermediate Redshift Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers from Diffuse Interstellar Bands
• Early metal enrichment of gas-rich galaxies at z~5
• Adaptive Optics Imaging of Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Quasar Absorbers
• Atomic data for Zn II - Improving Spectral Diagnostics of Chemical Evolution in High-redshift Galaxies
• Empirical Delay Time Distributions of Type Ia Supernovae From The Extended GOODS/HST Supernova Survey
• Emission Line Spectroscopy of a Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbing Galaxy at z = 0.437
• Probing Structure in Cold Gas at $z\lesssim 1$ with Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Sight Lines
• Galaxies with Background QSOs, I: A Search for Strong Galactic H-alpha Lines
• Super-Solar Metallicity in Weak Mg II Absorption Systems at z ~ 1.7
• Statistical properties of Faraday rotation measure in external galaxies -- I: intervening disc galaxies
• Cosmic evolution of metal densities: the enrichment of the Inter-Galactic Medium
• Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers in Star-forming Galaxies at z < 0.15 Detected with the Hubble Space Telescope and Implications for Galaxy Evolution
• Interstellar Ti II in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds
• Interstellar Silicate Dust in the z=0.89 Absorber Towards PKS 1830-211: Crystalline Silicates at High Redshift?
• Adaptive Optics Imaging of a Massive Galaxy Associated with a Metal-rich Absorber
• The Cosmological Bias Factor of Damped Lyman Alpha systems: Dependence on Metal Line Strength
• The kinematic signature of damped Lyman alpha systems: Using the D-index to screen for high column density HI absorbers
• Metal-enriched Galaxies in the First ~1 Billion Years: Evidence of a Smooth Metallicity Evolution at z ~ 5
• Quasar 2175 Å dust absorbers II: Correlation analysis and relationship with other absorption line systems
• 9.7 micrometer Silicate Absorption in a Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber at z=0.52
• SOAR Imaging of sub-Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at z<1
• Magellan LDSS3 emission confirmation of galaxies hosting metal-rich Lyman-alpha absorption systems
• Towards Understanding the Mass-Metallicity relation of Quasar Absorbers: Evidence for bimodality and consequences
• Neutral gas density in Damped Lyman Alpha systems
• The Nearby Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber SBS 1543+593: A Large HI Envelope in a Gas-Rich Galaxy Group
• Tracing the 10${}^7$K Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium with UV absorption lines
• MUSE-ALMA Haloes IX: Morphologies and Stellar Properties of Gas-rich Galaxies
• The contribution of X-ray binaries to the evolution of late-type galaxies: Evolutionary population synthesis simulations
• HI 21cm emission from the sub-damped Lyman-alpha absorber at z=0.0063 towards PG1216+069
• A High Signal-to-Noise HST Spectrum Toward J1009+0713: Precise Absorption Measurements in the CGM of Two Galaxies
• A metal-line strength indicator for Damped Lyman Alpha (DLA) systems at low signal-to-noise
• The Diversity of Metal-Enrichment and Abundance Patterns at High Redshift: A Magellan Survey of Gas-rich Galaxies Traced by Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at z~5
• Dust absorption along the line of sight for high-redshift objects
• Metals and a Search for Molecules in the Distant Universe: Magellan MIKE Observations of sub-DLAs at 2<z<3
• Local Galaxies as Damped Ly-Alpha Analogs
• MUSE-ALMA Haloes XIII. Molecular gas in $z\sim 0.5$ HI-selected galaxies
• A New Era for Supernova Science with the James Webb Space Telescope