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Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyα systems at z ≈ 3

Mackenzie, Ruari; Fumagalli, Michele; Theuns, Tom; Hatton, David J; Garel, Thibault; Cantalupo, Sebastiano; Christensen, Lise; Fynbo, Johan PU; Kanekar, Nissim; Møller, Palle; O’Meara, John; Prochaska, J Xavier; Rafelski, Marc; Shanks, Tom; Trayford, James

Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyα systems at z ≈ 3 Thumbnail


Authors

Ruari Mackenzie

Thibault Garel

Sebastiano Cantalupo

Lise Christensen

Johan PU Fynbo

Nissim Kanekar

Palle Møller

John O’Meara

J Xavier Prochaska

Marc Rafelski

Tom Shanks

James Trayford



Abstract

We present results from a survey of galaxies in the elds of six z 3 Damped Lyman systems (DLAs) using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We report a high detection rate of up to 80% of galaxies within 1000 km/s from DLAs and with impact parameters between 25 and 280 kpc. In particular, we discovered 5 high-condence Ly emitters associated with three DLAs, plus up to 9 additional detections across ve of the six elds. The majority of the detections are at relatively large impact parameters (> 50 kpc) with two detections being plausible host galaxies. Among our detections, we report four galaxies associated with the most metal-poor DLA in our sample (Z=Z = ????2:33 0:22), which trace an overdense structure resembling a lament. By comparing our detections with predictions from the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) cosmological simulations and a semi-analytic model designed to reproduce the observed bias of DLAs at z > 2, we conclude that our observations are consistent with a scenario in which a signicant fraction of DLAs trace the neutral regions within halos with a characteristic mass of Mh 1011 ???? 1012 M, in agreement with the inference made from the large-scale clustering of DLAs. We nally show how larger surveys targeting 25 absorbers have the potential of constraining the characteristic masses of halos hosting high-redshift DLAs with sucient accuracy to discriminate between dierent models.

Citation

Mackenzie, R., Fumagalli, M., Theuns, T., Hatton, D. J., Garel, T., Cantalupo, S., …Trayford, J. (2019). Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyα systems at z ≈ 3. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 487(4), 5070-5096. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz1501

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 9, 2019
Online Publication Date Jun 4, 2019
Publication Date Jul 31, 2019
Deposit Date Jun 6, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 487
Issue 4
Pages 5070-5096
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz1501

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Copyright Statement
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.






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