Related papers: C, N, O Abundances in the Most Metal-Poor Damped L…

Recently revealed C, N, and O abundances in the most metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) absorbers are compared with those of extremely metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo, as well as extragalactic H II regions, to decipher…

The damped Lyman alpha systems seen in the spectra of high redshift QSOs offer the means to determine element abundances in galaxies observed while still at an early stage of evolution. Such measurements, which have only recently come…

We present a high spectral resolution survey of the most metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems (DLAs) aimed at probing the nature and nucleosynthesis of the earliest generations of stars. Our survey comprises 22 systems with iron…

We present Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) measurements of metal abundances in eight 0.083<z<0.321 damped Lyman-\alpha (DLA) and sub-damped Ly-\alpha\ absorption systems serendipitously discovered in the COS-Halos survey. We find that…

We take a fresh look at the abundance of nitrogen in DLAs with oxygen abundances between 1/10 and 1/100 of solar. This is a metallicity regime poorly sampled in the local universe and where QSO absorbers may hold clues to both the…

We explore the redshift evolution of the metal content of damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) with new observations of four absorbers at z < 1.5 . The main conclusion is that the column density--weighted mean metallicity, [<Zn/H>] = -1.03 +/-…

Element abundances in high-redshift quasar absorbers offer excellent probes of the chemical enrichment of distant galaxies, and can constrain models for population III and early population II stars. Recent observations indicate that the…

We present arguments based on the measured abundances in individual damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) and sub-damped Lyman alpha systems (sub-DLAs), and also the average abundances inferred in large samples of QSO absorption line systems,…

It has now become recognised that damped Lyman alpha systems play an important role in helping us unravel the origin of chemical elements. In this presentation, we describe the main results of a recently completed survey of the most…

Galactic chemical evolution model calculations indicate that there should be considerable scatter in the observed N/O ratios at a fixed metallicity (O/H) for galaxies with very low metallicities due to the delayed release of primary N from…

Our knowledge of galactic chemical evolution is currently limited to observations of Milky Way stars and H II regions of nearby galaxies. Damped Lyman~$\alpha$ systems offer a new approach for tracking the evolution of normal galaxies from…

Damped Ly alpha clouds provide information on the chemistry of distant and metal poor regions of the universe. In these clouds for observational difficulties N and O are among the last elements to be measured, and C has still to be measured…

We report new HST and ground-based observations of a damped Lyman-alpha absorption system toward the QSO 0850+4400. The redshift of the absorption system is z = 0.163770 and the neutral hydrogen column density of the absorption system is…

We present new measurements of the abundances of carbon and oxygen derived from high-excitation C I and O I absorption lines in metal-poor halo stars, with the aim of clarifying the main sources of these two elements in the early stages of…

We present seven new abundance measurements of the elements O, C and Si at z > 4.5, doubling the existing sample of weakly depleted elements in gas-rich galaxies, in order to constrain the first ~1 billion years of cosmic metal evolution.…

From the analysis of the near-UV spectrum of the QSO 2206-199, obtained with a long series of exposures with STIS on the HST, we deduce a value (D/H) = (1.65 +/- 0.35) x 10(-5) (1 sigma error) for the abundance of deuterium in the z(abs) =…

Damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems found in the spectra of high redshift quasars are believed to trace the interstellar gas in high redshift galaxies. In this paper, we study the elemental abundances of C, N, O, Al, Si, S, Cr, Mn, Fe,…

A powerful technique to trace the signatures of the first stars is through the metal enrichment in concentrated reservoirs of hydrogen, such as the damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) in the early universe. We conducted a survey aimed at…

We study the Oxygen and Nitrogen abundances in the interstellar medium of high-redshift galaxies. We use high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio spectra of Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems detected along the line-of-sight to quasars…

The damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and sub-DLA quasar absorption lines provide powerful probes of the evolution of metals, gas, and stars in galaxies. One major obstacle in trying to understand the evolution of DLAs and sub-DLAs has been the…