Elemental Abundance Measurements in Low-redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Absorbers

Abstract

We present elemental abundance measurements for 9 damped Ly-alpha systems (DLAs) and 1 sub-DLA at 0.1 < z < 1.5 from recent observations with the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Most of these absorbers are found to be metal-poor, while 2 are found to have ~ 30-50 solar metallicities. Combining our data with other data from the literature, we find that the systems with higher [Zn/H] also have stronger depletion as measured by [Cr/Zn] and [Fe/Zn]. The relationship between the metallicity and H I column density is also investigated. Together with our previous MMT survey (Khare et al. 2004) we have discovered 2 of the 4 known absorbers at z < 1.5 that lie above (although near) the "obscuration threshold". This appears to be a result of selecting absorbers with strong metal lines in our sample. It would be interesting to find other similar systems by observing a larger sample and study how much such systems contribute to the cosmic budget of metals. Finally, an analysis of the N(H I)-weighted mean metallicity vs. redshift for our sample combined with data from the literature supports previous conclusions that the N(H I)-weighted mean global DLA metallicity rises slowly at best and falls short of solar levels by a factor of > 4 even at z=0.

arXiv comment20 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (24)

• The Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Damped Lyman Alpha Systems at z<1.65: The Expanded SDSS HST Sample
• 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 evolution of Omega(HI) and the epoch of formation of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers
• The UCSD HIRES/KeckI Damped Lya Abundance Database: II. The Implications
• Average Extinction Curves and Relative Abundances for QSO Absorption Line Systems at 1 <= z_abs < 2
• Chemical Abundances of the Damped Lya Systems at z>1.5
• The Diffuse Interstellar Clouds toward 23 Orionis
• Dust in High Redshift Galaxies
• Abundance Profiles and Kinematics of Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbing Galaxies at z < 0.65
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Element Abundances in Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies and Implications for the Global Metallicity-Redshift Relation
• Ionization Properties and Elemental Abundances in Damped Ly alpha Systems
• Zn and Cr abundances in damped Lyman alpha systems from the CORALS survey
• Selecting damped Lyman-alpha systems through CaII absorption. I: Dust depletions and reddening at z~1
• The dust obscuration bias in Damped Lyman alpha systems
• Metals and Dust in Intermediate-redshift Damped Ly-alpha Galaxies
• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-Alpha Galaxies
• The Most Metal-Rich Intervening Quasar Absorber Known
• Evidence for dust reddening in DLAs identified through CaII H&K absorption
• A Comparison of Absorption and Emission Line Abundances in the Nearby Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxy SBS 1543+593
• Damped Lyman Alpha Gas Metallicities at Redshifts z=0.9-2.0 from SDSS Spectra
• Elemental Abundances in Two High Column Density Damped Lyman Alpha Systems at z < 1.5
• Emission-line spectroscopy of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems: The case of SBS 1543+593/HS 1543+5921

Cited by in corpus (45)

• Metallicity Evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha Systems out to z~5
• The cosmic evolution of dust-corrected metallicity in the neutral gas
• A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - III. Three Additional Detections
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - VI. Sub-Damped Lyman-$\alpha$ Metallicity Measurements and the Circum-Galactic Medium
• Dust-depletion sequences in damped Lyman-α absorbers: a unified picture from low-metallicity systems to the Galaxy
• The Role of Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers in the Cosmic Evolution of Metals
• The First Observations of Low Redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Systems with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• The Statistical Properties of Neutral Gas at z<1.65 from UV Measurements of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• An 84 microGauss Magnetic Field in a Galaxy at Redshift z=0.692
• 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
• Statistics and characteristics of MgII absorbers along GRB lines of sight observed with VLT-UVES
• Elemental depletions in the Magellanic Clouds and the evolution of depletions with metallicity
• 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
• A study of the circum-galactic medium at z ~ 0.6 using DLA-galaxies
• The COS CGM Compendium. II: Metallicities of the Partial and Lyman Limit Systems at z<1
• Metal abundances at z<1.5: new measurements in sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers
• New abundance determinations in z < 1.5 QSO absorbers: seven sub-DLAs and one DLA
• Do Damped and Sub-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers Arise in Galaxies of Different Masses?
• Three intervening galaxy absorbers towards GRB060418: faint and dusty?
• 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
• Average Properties of a Large Sample of z_abs ~ z_em associated Mg II Absorption Line Systems
• The chemical compositions of 10 new sub-DLAs and strong Lyman-limit systems at z < 1.5
• Coincident, 100 kpc-scale damped Lyman alpha absorption towards a binary QSO: how large are galaxies at z ~ 3?
• Measurements of CaII absorption, metals, and dust in a sample of z~1 DLAs and subDLAs
• The Chemical Evolution Of High Z Galaxies From The Relative Abundances Of N, Si, S, And Fe In Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• The Mean Metal-line Absorption Spectrum of DLAs in BOSS
• Element Abundances at High-redshift: Magellan MIKE Observations of sub-Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at 1.7 < z <2.4
• A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - II. Dynamical Properties of the Galaxies towards Q0302-223 and Q1009-0026
• A Metal-Strong and Dust-Rich Damped \lya Absorption System toward the Quasar SDSS J115705.52+615521.7
• New Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle Observations of z<1.5 sub-damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Metals and dust in the neutral ISM: the Galaxy, Magellanic Clouds, and damped Lyman-α absorbers
• Revisiting the origin of the high metallicities of sub-damped Lyman-alpha systems
• Early metal enrichment of gas-rich galaxies at z~5
• Keck and VLT Observations of Super-damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers at z=2=2.5: Constraints on Chemical Compositions and Physical Conditions
• Super-Solar Metallicity in Weak Mg II Absorption Systems at z ~ 1.7
• Interstellar Ti II in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds
• The most metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at z>1.5 I: The Data
• The kinematic signature of damped Lyman alpha systems: Using the D-index to screen for high column density HI absorbers
• SOAR Imaging of sub-Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at z<1
• 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
• GALEX Discovery of a Damped Ly-alpha System at Redshift z = 1
• Probing the Interstellar Dust in Galaxies over > 10 Gyr of Cosmic History