The evolution of ΩHI and the epoch of formation of damped Lyman α absorbers

By C. Péroux, R. McMahon, L. Storrie-Lombardi, Mike J. Irwin Institute of Astronomy, U. Cambridge, UK., Sirtf Science Center, C. I. O. Technology., Pasadena, Us. 2001

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We present a study of the evolution of the column density distribution, f(N, z), and total neutral hydrogen mass in high column density quasar absorbers using candidates from a recent high-redshift survey for damped Lyman α (DLA) and Lyman-limit system (LLS) absorbers. The observed number of LLS [N(H_i) >1.6 × 10^(17) atom cm^(−2)] is used to constrain f(N, z) below the classical DLA definition of 2 × 10^(20) atom cm^(−2). The evolution of the number density of LLS is consistent with our previous work but steeper than previously published work of other authors. At z= 5, the number density of Lyman-limit systems per unit redshift is ∼5, implying that these systems are a major source of ultraviolet (UV) opacity in the high-redshift Universe. The joint LLS–DLA analysis shows unambiguously that f(N, z) deviates significantly from a single power law and that a Γ-law distribution of the form f(N,z) = (f_*/N_*)(N/N_*)^(−β)exp(−N/N_*) provides a better description of the observations. These results are used to determine the amount of neutral gas contained in DLAs and in systems with lower column density. Whilst in the redshift range 2–3.5, ∼90 per cent of the neutral H i mass is in DLAs, we find that at z > 3.5 this fraction drops to only 55 per cent and that the remaining ‘missing’ mass fraction of the neutral gas lies in sub-DLAs with N(H i) 10^(19)–2 × 10^(20) atom cm^(−2). The characteristic column density, N_*, changes from 1.6 × 10^(21) atom cm^(−2) at z 3.5, supporting a picture where at z > 3.5, we are directly observing the formation of high column density neutral hydrogen DLA systems from lower column density units. Moreover, since current metallicity studies of DLA systems focus on the higher column density systems they may be giving a biased or incomplete view of global galactic chemical evolution at z > 3. After correcting the observed mass in H i for the ‘missing’ neutral gas the comoving mass density now shows no evidence for a decrease above z= 2.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Reconciling the local galaxy population with damped Lyman α cross-sections and metal abundances (2005, methodology): “This is consistent with the formof the cut-off identified by Péroux et al. (2003) based on a large sample of DLAs and sub-DLAs.”
The HIPASS catalogue: ΩH i and environmental effects on the H i mass function of galaxies (2005, background): “…and these measurements have shown that the comoving neutral gasdensity atz = 2−5 is approximately a tenth of a percent of the present critical density of the Universe and about half of the mass density in stars at the present epoch (e.g., Storrie-Lombardi & Wolfe 2000; Péroux et al. 2003).”
The SDSS Damped Lyα Survey: Data Release 3 (2005, methodology): “Figure 1 presents a series of g(z) curves for the the Large Bright Quasar Survey (LBQS) search for damped Lyα systems (Wolfe et al. 1995), the compilation of Péroux et al. (2003), and the SDSS-DR1 sub-sample of PH04.”
THE EVOLUTION OF LYMAN LIMIT ABSORPTION SYSTEMS TO REDSHIFT SIX (2010, unknown): “…National Aeronautics and Space Administration shift systems, measured with HST, to z ∼ 5 (Bechtold et al. 2002; Sargent, Steidel & Boksenberg 1989 [SSB]; Lanzetta 1991; Storrie-Lombardi et al. 1994; StenglerLarrea et al. 1995 [SL95]; Lanzetta et al. 1995; Péroux 2001; Péroux et al. 2003 [P03]).”
Measurements of the UV background at 4.6 < z < 6.4 using the quasar proximity effect (2010, methodology): “Should a LLS lie in the observed line-of-sight of the quasar then the apparent size ofthe proximity region will be shortened, as their abundance limits the mean free path of ionising photons (e.g. Storrie-Lombardi et al.1994; Miralda-Escudé 2003; Péroux et al. 2003; Furlanetto & Mesinger 2009).”
Fluorescent Lyα Emission from the High-Redshift Intergalactic Medium (2005, methodology): “We assume that C is constant everywhere and we fix its value by imposing that the number density (per unit redshift) of LLSs in our simulation matches the observational data (Péroux et al. 2003).”
Cosmic evolution of the atomic and molecular gas contents of galaxies (2011, background): “…information about HI is very limited since it is based mostly on absorption-line measurements in the spectra of quasi-stellar object (QSO; e.g. Péroux et al. 2003; Prochaska et al. 2005; Rao et l. 2006; Guimarães et al. 2009; Noterdaeme et al. 2009; see Rauch 1998 for a review of this…”
The ESO UVES advanced data products quasar sample: II. Cosmological evolution of the neutral gas mass density (2013, methodology): “The DLA results are taken from the Péroux et al. (2003b) sample.”
The Linear Theory Power Spectrum from the Lyα Forest in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2004, methodology): “McDonald et al. (2005a) give templates for the contribution of high-density systems to PF (k, z), constrained by the observed column density distribution of these systems (Péroux et al. 2003a, 2003b; Prochaska & Herbert-Fort 2004).”
A DEFINITIVE SURVEY FOR LYMAN LIMIT SYSTEMS AT z ∼ 3.5 WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (2009, methodology): “Finally, the solid curves show the results from Storrie-Lombardi et al. (1994) and Péroux et al. (2003) who surveyed LLSs at z ∼ 4 using colorselected quasars.”
Evolution of the cosmological mass density of neutral gas from Sloan Digital Sky Survey II - Data Release 7 (2009, background): “In turn, Péroux et al. (2001, 2003) aimed at the highest redshifts by observing 66 quasars withzem > 4.”
Cosmology with a SKA HI intensity mapping survey (2015, background): “If ΩHI(z) increases by a factor of ∼ 5 by redshift 3, as seen in the DLA observations from Peroux et al. (2003), significantly higher signal-to-noise can be achieved and SKA phase 1 should be capable of measuring the lensing power spectrum and its evolution with high accuracy, as shown in Fig.”