Related papers: Fine-structure diagnostics of neutral carbon towar…

We calculate theoretical population ratios of the ground fine-structure levels of some atoms/ions which typically exhibit UV lines in the spectra of QSO absorbers redward the Ly-alpha forest: C0, C+, O0, Si+ and Fe+. The most reliable…

We present the detection of excited fine-structure energy levels of singly-ionized silicon and neutral carbon associated with the proximate damped Lyman-$\alpha$ system at $z_{\rm abs}=2.811$ towards \qso. This absorber has an apparent…

We study the excitation of fine structure levels of C I, C II and O I by ultraviolet (UV) photons around strong UV sources which are also ionizing sources of the cosmological reionization at redshift of $\sim 10$. The evolutions of ionized…

We present results of analysis of physical conditions (number density, intensity of UV field, kinetic temperature) in the cold H$_2$-bearing interstellar medium of local and high redshift galaxies. Our measurements based on the fit to the…

We present an ultraviolet spectroscopic survey of strong H I absorbers in the intergalactic medium, probing their evolution over the last 6-7 Gyr at redshifts $0.24 \leq z \leq 0.84$. We measure column densities $N_{\rm HI} \,( {\rm…

A new molecular hydrogen cloud is found in the sub-damped Ly-alpha absorber [log N(HI)=19.88+/-0.05] at the redshift z=1.15 toward the bright quasar HE0515-4414 (zem = 1.71). More than 30 absorption features in the Lyman band system of H2…

We estimate the He II to H I column density ratio, \eta = N(He II)/N(H I), in the intergalactic medium towards the high redshift (z_{em} = 2.885) bright quasar QSO HE 2347-4342 using Voigt-profile fitting of the H I transitions in the Lyman…

We present a new method for probing the physical conditions and metal enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium: the composite spectrum of Ly-alpha forest absorbers. We apply this technique to a sample of 9480 Ly-alpha absorbers with redshift…

We present the detection of CII and CII* absorption in the z = 3.0543 damped Ly-alpha system toward Q0000-2619. The derived population ratio implies a fine structure excitation temperature between 19.6 and 21.6 K. The upper value sets a…

We present a detailed analysis of three extremely strong intervening DLAs (log N(HI)>=21.7) observed towards quasars with VLT/UVES. We measure overall metallicities of [Zn/H]~-1.2, -1.3 and -0.7 at respectively zabs=2.34 towards SDSS…

Improved collisions strengths for the mid-infrared and optical transitions in Ne V are presented. Breit-Pauli R-Matrix calculations for electron impact excitation are carried out with fully resolved near-threshold resonances at very low…

We analyze the collisional excitation of the 158 micron (1900.5 GHz) fine structure transition of ionized carbon (C+) in terms of line intensities produced by simple cloud models. The single C+ fine structure transition is a very important…

We probe the physical conditions in high redshift galaxies, specifically, the Damped Lyman-alpha Systems (DLAs) using neutral carbon (CI) fine structure lines and molecular hydrogen (H2). We report five new detections of CI and analyze the…

We study the physical conditions in DLAs, using a sample of 33 systems toward 26 QSOs acquired for a recently completed survey of H_2 by Ledoux et al. (2003). We use the column densities of H_2 in different rotational levels, together with…

We have obtained a moderate resolution spectrum of the quasar PKS 0528-250 with the Red Channel Spectrograph on the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) in order to study a damped Lyman alpha absorption line system at z = 2.8115. We obtain a new…

We present a new ultra-violet spectrum of the QSO 0013-004 with 0.9 \AA resolution obtained with the MMT Blue spectrograph. The \upsilon = 0 - 0, 1 - 0, 2 - 0 and 3 - 0 Lyman bands of H_2 associated with the z = 1.9731 damped Ly alpah…

We present a detailed analysis of a high resolution spectrum of the damped Ly$\alpha$ system at $z_{\rm abs}$~=~2.8112toward PKS~0528-250. The absorption redshift is slightly larger than the emission redshift of the quasar. We estimate the…

We present a reanalysis of the HeII Lyman alpha absorption towards the quasars HS1700+6416 and HE2347-4342 using new high S/N, optical observations. An alternative analysis method is applied, which fits the high quality, optical HI data…

We searched for 21-cm absorption associated with the z_abs = 1.3647 absorption system toward PKS 0237-233 using the GMRT. A high quality UVES spectrum shows that C I and C I* are detected at this redshift together with C II*, Mg I, Mg II,…

We report the identification of a very metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha system (DLA) at z_abs = 3.067295 that is modestly carbon-enhanced, with an iron abundance of ~1/700 solar ([Fe/H] = -2.84) and [C,O/Fe] ~ +0.6. Such an abundance pattern…