Observations of Zn II, CR II, Fe II, and CA II in the damped Lyman-alpha absorber at Z = 0.692 toward 3C 286

Details Observations of Zn II, CR II, Fe II, and CA II in the damped Lyman-alpha absorber at Z = 0.692 toward 3C 286 Observations of Zn II, CR II, Fe II, and CA II in the damped Lyman-alpha absorber at Z = 0.692 toward 3C 286

Nov 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992apj...399l.121m&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 399, no. 2, p. L121-L124.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

69

Chromium, Lyman Alpha Radiation, Metallicity, Quasars, Zinc, Absorption Spectra, Abundance, Calcium, Galactic Evolution, Iron, Red Shift

Scientific paper

We report the first observations of Zn II and Cr II in a low-redshift damped Ly-alpha QSO absorption-line system. Using the N(Zn II)/N(H I) ratio as a probe of the metallicity and N(Cr II)/N(Zn II) and N(Fe II)/N(Zn II) as measures of the dust content, we find that the heavy-element abundances in the z = 0.692 absorber toward the QSO 3C 286 are about 6 percent solar and that the dust-to-gas ratio is about 5 percent of that of the Galactic disk. The fact that these values are consistent with those of the four high-redshift damped systems whose Zn and Cr abundances have been examined quantitatively to date suggests that if these systems represent a single population of galaxies, they are evolving slowly, if at all. Furthermore, since the redshift of the 3C 286 system corresponds approximately in time to the epoch of the sun's formation, the disparity in their metallicities argues strongly that this damped Ly-alpha absorber, at least, is not representative of a galactic disk evolving on a coeval basis with the Milky Way.

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