Reconciling the local galaxy population with damped Ly-alpha cross sections and metal abundances

Abstract

A comprehensive analysis of 355 high-quality WSRT HI 21-cm line maps of nearby galaxies shows that the properties and incident rate of Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) absorption systems observed in the spectra of high redshift QSOs are in good agreement with DLAs originating in gas disks of galaxies like those in the z~0 population. Comparison of low-z DLA statistics with the HI incidence rate and column density distribution f(N) for the local galaxy sample shows no evidence for evolution in the integral "cross section density" below z~1.5, implying that there is no need for a hidden population of galaxies or HI clouds to contribute significantly to the DLA cross section. Compared with z~4, our data indicates evolution of a factor of two in the comoving density along a line of sight. We find that dN/dz(z=0)=0.045 +/- 0.006. The idea that the local galaxy population can explain the DLAs is further strengthened by comparing the properties of DLAs and DLA galaxies with the expectations based on our analysis of local galaxies. The distribution of luminosities of DLA host galaxies, and of impact parameters between QSOs and the centres of DLA galaxies, are in good agreement with what is expected from local galaxies. Approximately 87% of low z DLA galaxies are expected to be fainter than L* and 37 per cent have impact parameters less than 1'' at z=0.5. The analysis shows that some host galaxies with very low impact parameters and low luminosities are expected to be missed in optical follow up surveys. The well-known metallicity-luminosity relation in galaxies, in combination with metallicity gradients in galaxy disks, cause the expected median metallicity of low redshift DLAs to be low (~1/7 solar), which is also in good agreement with observations of low z DLAs. (Abridged)

arXiv comment22 pages, 22 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Fixed typos

References in corpus (85)

• The Origin of the Mass--Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-Forming Galaxies in the SDSS
• Profiles of dark haloes: evolution, scatter, and environment
• The Formation of Galactic Disks
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Near Infrared Galaxy Luminosity Functions
• Line formation in solar granulation: IV. [O I], OI and OH lines and the photospheric O abundance
• The HIPASS Catalogue - I. Data Presentation
• On the evolution of star forming galaxies
• The Cosmic Energy Inventory
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The b_J-band galaxy luminosity function and survey selection function
• The dark and baryonic matter content of low surface brightness disk galaxies
• The HIPASS catalogue: Omega_HI and environmental effects on the HI mass function of galaxies
• Science with the Square Kilometer Array: Motivation, Key Science Projects, Standards and Assumptions
• On the Kinematics of the Damped Lyman Alpha Protogalaxies
• The Metallicity-Luminosity Relation, Effective Yields, and Metal Loss in Spiral and Irregular Galaxies
• The Ursa Major Cluster of Galaxies. IV ; HI synthesis observations
• The Westerbork HI Survey of Spiral and Irregular Galaxies I. HI Imaging of Late-type Dwarf Galaxies
• Damped Lyman alpha absorbers at high redshift -- large disks or galactic building blocks?
• The Age-Metallicity Relation of the Universe in Neutral Gas: The First 100 Damped Lya Systems
• The Metallicity of High Redshift Galaxies: The Abundance of Zinc in 34 Damped Lyman Alpha Systems from z = 0.7 to 3.4
• The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey
• Line formation in solar granulation VI. [C I], C I, CH and C2 lines and the photospheric C abundance
• Discovery of Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at Redshifts Less Than 1.65 and Results on their Incidence and Cosmological Mass Density
• Surveys for z > 3 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorption Systems
• The evolution of Omega(HI) and the epoch of formation of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers
• Metal Abundances at z < 1.5: Fresh Clues to the Chemical Enrichment History of Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: 16 < B_MGC < 24 galaxy counts and the calibration of the local galaxy luminosity function
• The HI Mass Function of Galaxies from a Deep Survey in the 21cm Line
• The Extreme Outer Regions of Disk Galaxies: I. Chemical Abundances of HII Regions
• Disk galaxies at Z=0 and at High Redshift: an explanation of the observed evolution of damped Ly-alpha systems
• The 1000 Brightest HIPASS Galaxies: HI Mass Function and Omega_HI
• The CORALS Survey I: New Estimates of the Number Density and Gas Content of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems Free from Dust Bias
• The Westerbork HI Survey of spiral and irregular galaxies III: HI observations of early-type disk galaxies
• Extended Ly-alpha emission from a damped Ly-alpha absorber at z = 1.93, and the relation between DLAs and Lyman-break galaxies
• Protogalactic Disk Models of Damped Lya Kinematics
• The WSRT wide-field HI survey: II. Local Group features
• Are high-redshift DLA galxies Lyman-break galaxies?
• Abundance Profiles and Kinematics of Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbing Galaxies at z < 0.65
• QSO Absorbing Galaxies at z<~1: Deep Imaging and Spectroscopy in the Field of 3C 336
• A Homogeneous Sample of Sub-DLAs III: Total Gas Mass Omega_(HI+HeII) at z>2
• Si and Mn Abundances in Damped Lya Systems with Low Dust Content
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Element Abundances in Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies and Implications for the Global Metallicity-Redshift Relation
• The Structure and Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies
• Low-Redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Galaxies Toward the Quasars B2 0827+243, PKS 0952+179, PKS 1127-145, and PKS 1629+120
• The Arecibo Dual-Beam Survey: The HI Mass Function of Galaxies
• 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
• Abundance of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers in cosmological SPH simulations
• Dust-reddening and gravitational lensing of SDSS QSOs due to foreground damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Absorption Systems in the Spectra of 66 z > 4 Quasars
• The Local Hole in the Galaxy Distribution: Evidence from 2MASS
• Sharp Hi Edges in the Outskirts of Disk Galaxies
• The SDSS Damped Lya Survey: Data Release 1
• NICMOS imaging search for damped Lya galaxies
• Damped Lyman alpha absorber and the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function at high redshift
• Simulations of Damped Lyman-Alpha and Lyman Limit Absorbers in Different Cosmologies: Implications for Structure Formation at High Redshift
• The Bivariate Brightness Function of Galaxies and a Demonstration of the Impact of Surface Brightness Selection Effects on Luminosity Function Estimations
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-Alpha Galaxies
• NICMOS Imaging of a Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber at z=1.89 toward LBQS 1210+1731 : Constraints on Size and Star Formation Rate
• Damped Lyman-alpha absorption from a nearby Low Surface Brightness galaxy
• HI 21cm absoprtion in two low redshift damped Ly-alpha systems
• On the relation between high-redshift starburst galaxies and damped Ly-alpha systems
• APM z>4 QSO Survey: Distribution and Evolution of High Column Density HI Absorbers
• Evidence for dust reddening in DLAs identified through CaII H&K absorption
• Detection of Warm and Cold Phases of the Neutral ISM in a Damped Ly-alpha Absorber
• The Local Hole in the Galaxy Distribution: New Optical Evidence
• The z=0.0912 and z=0.2212 Damped Lyman Alpha Galaxies Along the Sight-Line Toward the Quasar OI 363
• The cosmological significance of Low Surface Brightness galaxies found in a deep blind neutral-hydrogen survey
• The Contribution of HI-rich Galaxies to the Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber Population at z=0
• The size of a quasar's mid-IR emission region inferred from microlensed images of Q2237+0305
• A catalogue of damped Lyman alpha absorption systems and radio flux densities of the background quasars
• Emission-line spectroscopy of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems: The case of SBS 1543+593/HS 1543+5921
• NICMOS Snapshot Survey of Damped Lyman Alpha Quasars
• H-alpha Imaging with HST+NICMOS of An Elusive Damped Ly-alpha Cloud at z=0.6
• The Closest Damped Lyman Alpha System
• Damped Lyman alpha Absorbing Galaxies At Low Redshifts z<1 From Hierarchical Galaxy Formation Models
• HI 21cm imaging of a nearby Damped Lyman-alpha system
• The effects of an ionizing background on the HI column density distribution in the local Universe
• ATCA search for 21 cm emission from a candidate damped Ly-$\alpha$ absorber at z = 0.101
• Mg II Absorber Number Density at z~0.05: Implications for Omega_DLA Evolution
• Classical and MgII-selected Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers: impact on Omega_HI at z<1.7
• Imaging and spectroscopy of galaxies associated with two z~0.7 damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems
• 21-cm H I emission from the Damped Lyman-alpha absorber SBS 1543+593
• The HI Column Density Distribution Function at z=0: the Connection to Damped Ly alpha Statistics
• Galaxies Associated with z~4 Damped Lya Systems: I. Imaging and Photometric Selection

Cited by in corpus (157)

• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• Cold gas accretion in galaxies
• On the evolution of the HI column density distribution in cosmological simulations
• Reionization and Cosmology with 21 cm Fluctuations
• The Atlas3D project -- XIII. Mass and morphology of HI in early-type galaxies as a function of environment
• The Physics of the Intergalactic Medium
• Column density distribution and cosmological mass density of neutral gas: Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Data Release 9
• On the (Non)Evolution of HI Disks over Cosmic Time
• Evolution of the cosmological mass density of neutral gas from Sloan Digital Sky Survey II - Data Release 7
• Damped Lyman Alpha Systems in Galaxy Formation Simulations
• Average Extinction Curves and Relative Abundances for QSO Absorption Line Systems at 1 <= z_abs < 2
• Probing Cosmic Chemical Evolution with Gamma-Ray Bursts: GRB060206 at z=4.048
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - II. Cosmological Evolution of the Neutral Gas Mass Density
• Gas Metallicities in the Extended Disks of NGC 1512 and NGC 3621. Chemical Signatures of Metal Mixing or Enriched Gas Accretion?
• The EAGLE simulations: atomic hydrogen associated with galaxies
• Reconciling the Metallicity Distributions of Gamma-ray Burst, Damped Lyman-alpha, and Lyman-break Galaxies at z=3
• Cosmological evolution of atomic gas and implications for 21 cm HI absorption
• Galaxy Counterparts of metal-rich Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers - I: The case of the z=2.35 DLA towards Q2222-0946
• The Host Galaxies of Gamma-Ray Bursts I: ISM Properties of Ten Nearby Long-Duration GRB Hosts
• Quasars Probing Quasars VII. The Pinnacle of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium Surrounds Massive z~2 Galaxies
• FIREbox: Simulating galaxies at high dynamic range in a cosmological volume
• Consensus report on 25 years of searches for damped Ly$\alpha$ galaxies in emission: Confirming their metallicity-luminosity relation at $z\gtrsim 2$
• The Cosmic Decline in the H2/HI-Ratio in Galaxies
• The spin temperature of high-redshift damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• The impact of local stellar radiation on the HI column density distribution
• 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 Keck+Magellan Survey for Lyman Limit Absorption I: The Frequency Distribution of Super Lyman Limit Systems
• Searching for Low Surface-brightness Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Implications for the Star Formation Efficiency in Neutral Gas at z ~ 3
• 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
• A connection between extremely strong Damped Lyman-alpha Systems and Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies at small impact parameters
• A halo model for cosmological neutral hydrogen: abundances and clustering
• Where is the Molecular Hydrogen in Damped Lyman-Alpha Absorbers?
• The Role of Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers in the Cosmic Evolution of Metals
• Directly imaging damped Ly-alpha galaxies at z>2. III: The star formation rates of neutral gas reservoirs at z~2.7
• The evolution of neutral gas in damped Lyman $\alpha$ systems from the XQ-100 survey
• The distribution of gas in the Local Group from constrained cosmological simulations: the case for Andromeda and the Milky Way galaxies
• A Groundbased Imaging Study of Galaxies Causing DLA, subDLA, and LLS Absorption in Quasar Spectra
• Discovery of HI gas in a young radio galaxy at $z=0.44$ using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
• The Statistical Properties of Neutral Gas at z<1.65 from UV Measurements of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• A search for HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII absorbers in the redshift desert
• The Simulated HI Sky at low redshift
• Estimating gas accretion in disc galaxies using the Kennicutt-Schmidt law
• The First Observations of Low-Redshift Damped Lyman-α Systems with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: Chemical Abundances and Affiliated Galaxies
• Metal-rich Damped/sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Quasar Absorbers at z<1
• The neutral gas extent of galaxies as derived from weak intervening CaII absorbers
• Constraining a halo model for cosmological neutral hydrogen
• Star Formation from DLA Gas in the Outskirts of Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3
• Extragalactic HI Surveys
• Molecular hydrogen in the z = 2.66 damped Lyman-alpha absorber toward Q J0643-5041
• A new comprehensive set of elemental abundances in DLAs III. Star formation histories
• The nature of damped Lyman alpha and sub-damped Lyman alpha absorbers
• A search for 21 cm HI absorption in AT20G compact radio galaxies
• Search for cold gas in strong MgII absorbers at 0.5<z<1.5: nature and evolution of 21-cm absorbers
• Do Damped and Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers Arise in Galaxies of Different Masses?
• [CII] 158 Micron Emission from z~4 HI Absorption-Selected Galaxies
• On the mass-metallicity relation, velocity dispersion and gravitational well depth of GRB host galaxies
• Cold gas accretion by high-velocity clouds and their connection to QSO absorption-line systems
• Large scale structure in the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey: Filling the Voids with HI galaxies?
• The star formation rate of CaII and damped Lyman-alpha absorbers at 0.4<z<1.3
• Molecular gas and star formation in an absorption-selected galaxy: Hitting the bull's eye at z = 2.46
• Illuminating the past 8 billion years of cold gas towards two gravitationally lensed quasars
• The extent of the MgII absorbing circum-galactic medium of quasars
• On the cool gaseous haloes of quasars
• Cross correlation of Lyman-alpha absorbers with gas-rich galaxies
• The HI content of dark matter halos at $z\approx 0$ from ALFALFA
• LCDM Satellites and HI Companions - The Arecibo ALFA Survey of NGC 2903
• The detectability of HI 21-cm absorption in damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Constraints on the evolution of the relationship between HI mass and halo mass in the last 12 Gyr
• FLASH Early Science -- Discovery of an intervening HI 21-cm absorber from an ASKAP survey of the GAMA 23 field
• A metallicity-spin temperature relation in damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• The First Large Absorption Survey in HI (FLASH): I. Science Goals and Survey Design
• Directly imaging damped Lyman-alpha galaxies at z>2. I: Methodology and First Results
• ALMACAL III: A combined ALMA and MUSE Survey for Neutral, Molecular, and Ionised Gas in an HI-Absorption-Selected System
• Gas Accretion onto the Milky Way
• ALMA + VLT observations of a Damped Lyman-α absorbing galaxy: Massive, wide CO emission, gas-rich but with very low SFR
• The Smooth MgII gas distribution through the interstellar/extra-planar/halo interface
• The HI Mass Density in Galactic Halos, Winds, and Cold Accretion as Traced by MgII Absorption
• Quantified H i Morphology VII: The Morphology of Extended Disks in UV and H i
• Modelling the cosmic neutral hydrogen from DLAs and 21 cm observations
• Detection of emission lines from z ~ 3 DLAs towards the QSO J2358+0149
• HI 21-cm absorption survey of quasar-galaxy pairs: Distribution of cold gas around z<0.4 galaxies
• A Kennicutt-Schmidt Law for Intervening Absorption Line Systems
• On the Connection Between Metal Absorbers and Quasar Nebulae
• The ALFALFA HI Absorption Pilot Survey: A Wide-Area Blind Damped Lyman Alpha System Survey of the Local Universe
• Lyman Alpha and MgII as Probes of Galaxies and their Environments
• The Milky Way halo as a QSO absorption-line system. New results from an HST/STIS absorption-line catalogue of Galactic high-velocity clouds
• An HST/COS legacy survey of intervening SiIII absorption in the extended gaseous halos of low-redshift galaxies
• The host galaxies of strong CaII QSO absorption systems at z<0.5
• New HI 21-cm absorbers at low and intermediate redshifts
• Where are the Cosmic Metals at z~3?
• A model for the metallicity evolution of damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Damped Lyα Absorption Systems in Semi-Analytic Models with Multiphase Gas
• A successful search for intervening 21 cm HI absorption in galaxies at 0.4 < z <1.0 with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)
• Detection of broad 21-cm absorption at z = 0.656 in the complex sight-line towards 3C336
• The nature of damped HI absorbers probed by cosmological simulations: satellite accretion and outflows
• Simba: The average properties of the circumgalactic medium of $2\le z\le 3$ quasars are determined primarily by stellar feedback
• Baryons: What, When and Where?
• The evolution of neutral hydrogen over the past 11 Gyr via HI 21 cm absorption
• The atomic-to-molecular hydrogen transition in the TNG50 simulation: Using realistic UV fields to create spatially resolved HI maps
• A Fundamental Test for Galaxy Formation Models: Matching the Lyman-$\alpha$ Absorption Profiles of Galactic Halos over Three Decades in Distance
• Disk Stability and Neutral Hydrogen as a Tracer of Dark Matter
• Outskirts of Distant Galaxies In Absorption
• MUSE-ALMA Haloes VIII: Statistical Study of Circumgalactic Medium Gas
• On the Origin of the High Column Density Turnover in the HI Column Density Distribution
• The ALMA-CRISTAL survey. Discovery of a 15 kpc-long gas plume in a $z=4.54$ Lyman-$\alpha$ blob
• Using 21-cm absorption surveys to measure the average HI spin temperature in distant galaxies
• A New Constraint on the Physical Nature of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• Cosmic clocks: A Tight Radius - Velocity Relationship for HI-Selected Galaxies
• A Glimpse at Quasar Host Galaxy Far-UV Emission, Using DLAs as Natural Coronagraphs
• Universe opacity and Type Ia supernova dimming
• Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers in Star-forming Galaxies at z < 0.15 Detected with the Hubble Space Telescope and Implications for Galaxy Evolution
• Beyond $\Lambda$CDM with HI intensity mapping: robustness of cosmological constraints in the presence of astrophysics
• The \HI column density power spectrum of six nearby spiral galaxies
• Universe opacity and CMB
• New empirical constraints on the cosmological evolution of gas and stars in galaxies
• High-redshift Damped Ly-alpha Absorbing Galaxy Model Reproducing the N(HI)-Z Distribution
• The Ly$\alpha$ emission from high-$z$ galaxies hosting strong Damped Ly$\alpha$ systems
• Extragalactic HI 21-cm absorption line observations with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope
• The Halo Occupation Distribution of HI from 21cm Intensity Mapping at Moderate Redshifts
• MUSE-ALMA Halos XI: Gas flows in the circumgalactic medium
• Protoplanetary discs around sun-like stars appear to live longer when the metallicity is low
• A statistical measurement of the HI spin temperature in DLAs at cosmological distances
• The evolution of cold neutral gas and the star formation history
• Parsec-scale HI absorption structure in a low-redshift galaxy seen against a Compact Symmetric Object
• HI intensity mapping correlation function from UNIT simulations: BAO and observationally induced anisotropy
• The association between gas and galaxies III: The Cross-correlation of Galaxies and Ly-alpha Absorbers at z ~ 1
• VLT/UVES observations of peculiar alpha abundances in a sub-DLA at z ~ 1.8 towards the quasar B1101-26
• Magellan LDSS3 emission confirmation of galaxies hosting metal-rich Lyman-alpha absorption systems
• The Column Densities of Molecular Gas across Cosmic Time: Bridging Observations and Simulations
• Towards Understanding the Mass-Metallicity relation of Quasar Absorbers: Evidence for bimodality and consequences
• A possible connection between the spin temperature of damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems and star formation history
• Detections of 21-cm absorption with a blind FAST survey at z $⩽$ 0.09
• The failure of testing for cosmic opacity via the distance-duality relation
• Post-reionization HI 21-cm signal: A probe of negative cosmological constant
• Astrophysics in 2006
• Broad, weak 21 cm absorption in an early type galaxy: spectral-line finding and parametrization for future surveys
• The gas and stellar mass of low-redshift damped Lyman-$\alpha$ absorbers
• The potential of tracing the star formation history with HI 21-cm in intervening absorption systems
• The nature of Long-GRB host galaxies from chemical abundances
• HI 21cm observations of the PG1216+069 sub-DLy-alpha absorber field at z=0.00632
• The z = 0.0777 C III Absorber Towards PHL 1811 as a Case Study of a Low Redshift Weak Metal Line Absorber
• Cold neutral hydrogen gas in galaxies
• A Multi-messenger view of Cosmic Dawn: Conquering the Final Frontier
• HI 21cm emission from the sub-damped Lyman-alpha absorber at z=0.0063 towards PG1216+069
• Intensity mapping of post-reionization 21-cm signal and its cross-correlations as a probe of $f(R)$ gravity
• Statistical distribution of HI 21cm intervening absorbers as potential cosmic acceleration probes
• A Global Census of Metals in the Universe
• Evolution of the cold gas fraction and the star formation history: Prospects with current and future radio facilities
• Constraints on the gas masses of low-z damped Lyman-$\alpha$ systems
• HI Observations of the Ca II absorbing galaxies Mrk 1456 and SDSS J211701.26-002633.7
• Discovery of a damped Ly$\alpha$ galaxy at z $\sim$ 3 towards the quasar SDSS J011852+040644
• Considering light-matter interactions in the Friedmann equations
• HI-selected Galaxies as a probe of Quasar Absorption Systems
• Updated Models for the Creation of a Low-z QSO Absorber by a Dwarf Galaxy Wind
• HI 21-cm Absorption Associated with Foreground Galaxies on Top of Quasars
• FEASTS and MHONGOOSE: HI Column Density Distribution at $z=0$ for $N_{\mathrm{HI}}>10^{17.8}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$