Related papers: Metals and Dust in Intermediate-redshift Damped Ly…
We present abundance measurements of the elements Zn, S, O, C, Si and Fe for four sub-DLAs at redshifts ranging from z=2.173 to z=2.635 using observations from the MIKE spectrograph on the Magellan telescope to constrain the chemical…
We search for galaxy counterparts to damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) at z>2 towards nine quasars, which have 14 DLAs and 8 sub-DLAs in their spectra. We use integral field spectroscopy to search for Ly-alpha emission line objects at the…
The cosmic chemical enrichment as measured from damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers (DLAs) will be underestimated if dusty and metal-rich absorbers have evaded identification. Here we report the discovery and present the spectroscopic observations…
We present optical and near-infrared ground-based imaging results on four low-redshift damped Ly-alpha (DLA) galaxies. The corresponding DLA systems were discovered in our HST spectroscopic surveys for DLA lines in known strong MgII…
We present results of our HST Cycle 11 Survey for low-redshift (z<1.65) DLAs in the UV spectra of quasars selected from the SDSS Early Data Release. These quasars have strong intervening MgII-FeII systems which are known signatures of high…
Starting from a summary of detection statistics of our recent X-shooter campaign, we review the major surveys, both space and ground based, for emission counterparts of high-redshift damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers (DLAs) carried out since the…
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,…
We study the nature of damped Lya absorption (DLA) systems at z<=1 using a sample of 11 DLA galaxies, for which accurate redshift measurements are available. We demonstrate that the precision of photometric redshifts is sufficient for…
(Abridged for arXiv) We report the discovery of an unusual, extremely dust-rich and metal-strong damped \lya absorption system (DLA) at a redshift $z_{a}=2.4596$ toward the quasar SDSS J115705.52+615521.7 (hereafter J1157+6155) with an…
We show that the extinction of quasar absorbers increases exponentially with the logarithmic column density of any volatile metal (e.g. zinc), with a charateristic turning point above which the quasars are severely dimmed. We derive the…
An unbiased sample of 147 quasar/AGN spectra, obtained with the FOS/HST, has been searched for intervening MgII absorbers over the redshift range 0<z<0.15. The total redshift path searched is 18.8, with the survey being 80% complete to a…
We present high resolution spectroscopic observations of two neighbouring damped Lya systems (DLAs) along the same line of sight towards B2314-409. Due to their separation (v ~ 2000 km/s) and the high spectral resolution of the data, it is…
We report {\it HST} COS spectroscopy of 10 quasars with foreground star-forming galaxies at 0.02$<$$z$$<$ 0.14 within impact parameters of $\sim$1-7 kpc. We detect damped/sub-damped Ly$\alpha$ absorption in 100$\%$ of cases where no…
The XQ-100 survey has provided high signal-noise spectra of 100 redshift 3-4.5 quasars with the X-Shooter spectrograph. The metal abundances for 13 elements in the 41 damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) identified in the XQ-100 sample are…
Damped Ly-alpha absorbers (DLAs) can be used to measure gas-phase metallicities at large cosmological lookback times with high precision. Relative abundances can still be measured accurately deep into the reionization epoch (z > 6) using…
To fully exploit the potential of quasars as probes of cosmic chemical evolution and the internal gas dynamics of galaxies it is important to understand the selection effects behind the quasar samples and in particular if the selection…
Damped Lyman-{\alpha} Absorbers (DLAs) as a class of QSO absorption-line systems are currently our most important source of detailed information on the cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies. However, the degree to which this information is…
The Damped Lyman-alpha systems (DLAs), seen in absorption in the spectrum of quasars, are believed to contain a large fraction of the neutral gas in the Universe. Paradoxically, these systems are more difficult to observe at z_abs<1.7,…
We derive the statistical properties of neutral gas at redshifts 0.11<z<1.65 from UV measurements of quasar Lyman alpha absorption lines corresponding to 369 MgII systems with $W^{\lambda2796}_{0} \ge 0.3$ \AA. In addition to the 41 damped…
We have searched the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12 for ghostly Damped Ly$\alpha$ (DLA) systems. These systems, located at the redshift of the quasars, show strong absorption from low-ionization atomic species but reveal no HI…