The Physical Properties of the Damped Lyα Systems: A Keck HIRES Investigation

Details The Physical Properties of the Damped Lyα Systems: A Keck HIRES Investigation The Physical Properties of the Damped Lyα Systems: A Keck HIRES Investigation

Oct 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998phdt........17p&link_type=abstract

Thesis (PHD). UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO , Source DAI-B 59/04, p. 1696, Oct 1998, 368 pages.

Other

Ly&Alpha, Systems, Protogalaxies, Galaxies, Cosmology

Scientific paper

Studying the damped Lyα systems is one of the most efficient methods for probing the physical nature of protogalaxies in the early universe. In turn, this research has direct implications for theories on galaxy formation and cosmology. In this thesis, we present results from several studies on the physical properties of the damped Lyα systems. In particular, we focus on the chemical abundances and kinematic characteristics of the damped systems with observations taken with HIRES on the 10m W. M. Keck Telescope. Among the principle results reported in this manuscript are: (1) the damped Lyα systems are predominantly neutral, (2) the low-ion profiles trace one another very closely in velocity space, (3) the low-ion profiles are kinematically disjoint from the high-ion profiles implying distinct physical origins for the two species, (4) the damped Lyα systems exhibit abundance patterns consistent with a Type II supernovae enrichment, with the major exception of Zn and Ni which argue for the presence of dust, (5) the metallicity of the sample of damped Lyα systems considered here shows a column density-weighted mean [ ]/ = -1.01 dex and [ ]/ = -1.52 dex for z = 1.5-3 and []/ = -1.80 dex for z > 3, (6) the low-ion profiles exhibit a distribution of velocity widths from ≈20-300 km s-1, (7) the majority of the low-ion profiles have an edge-leading asymmetric profile shape, (8) the kinematics of the damped Lyα systems are consistent with those predicted for a single population of thick, rapidly (vrot ≈ 250 km s-1) rotating disks, (9) the kinematics are inconsistent with the standard CDM cosmology if one assumes the damped Lyα systems are centrifugally supported disks at high redshift. Two resolutions of this discrepancy are (i) the damped Lyα systems are merging protogalactic clumps or (ii) the standard cosmology is wrong as the correct one must account for the presence of rapidly rotating disk galaxies at very high redshift (z ≈ 3).

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