The Nature of the Damped LyAlpha Absorbers -- A New Study of Young Galaxies

Details The Nature of the Damped LyAlpha Absorbers -- A New Study of Young Galaxies The Nature of the Damped LyAlpha Absorbers -- A New Study of Young Galaxies

Dec 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997hst..prop.7329m&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #7329

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Hst Proposal Id #7329 Quasar Absorption Lines

Scientific paper

The damped LyAlpha absorption line systems {DLAs}, occasionally found in quasar spectra, provide one of only a few practical methods of detecting and studying significant numbers of galaxies at high redshifts. DLAs provide a completely different identification technique which is not biased in the same ways as other searches for emission-line or ``UV-dropout" objects. The NICMOS coronograph is by far the best instrument available to detect the young or primeval galaxies which produce DLAs, because they are faint, red, and usually within 1 or 2 arcseconds of a relatively bright quasar. The NICMOS team has a GTO program to use the coronograph for detailed studies {2 orbits} of one DLA in Cycle 7 and two DLAs in Cycle 8. We propose a complementary Snapshot Survey which, although it might miss a few DLA galaxies if they are more than a magnitude fainter than L_*, will cover more than an order-of-magnitude more targets. These individual 500-second Snapshots will have the sensitivity to detect unambiguously dozens of galaxies at z >= 2, which are required to answer inherently statistical questions about DLAs, including: a} What is their luminosity function? b} What are their sizes and morphologies? Are they related in appearance to present-day galaxies? c} Do they have any properties which correlate with the redness of the background quasar {which may be due to dust absorption}? and d} How does their H I column density vary with impact parameter?

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