The star formation history of damped Lyman alpha absorbers

The local power law relationship between the surface densities of neutral hydrogen gas and star formation rate (SFR) can be used to explore the SFR properties of damped Lyman alpha (DLA) systems at higher redshift. We find that while the SFR densities for DLA systems are consistent with luminous star forming galaxies at redshifts below z~0.6, at higher redshifts their SFR density is too low for them to provide a significant contribution to the cosmic star formation history (SFH). This suggests that the majority of DLAs may be a distinct population from the Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) or submillimeter star-forming galaxies that together dominate the SFR density at high redshift. It is also possible that the DLAs do not trace the bulk of the neutral gas at high redshift. The metallicity properties of DLAs are consistent with this interpretation. The DLAs show a metal mass density lower by two orders of magnitude at all redshifts than that inferred from the SFH of the universe. These results are consistent with DLAs being dominated by low mass systems having low SFRs or a late onset of star formation, similar to the star formation histories of dwarf galaxies in the local universe.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - VI. Sub-Damped Lyman-α\alpha Metallicity Measurements and the Circum-Galactic Medium

The Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM) can be probed through the analysis of absorbing systems in the line-of-sight to bright background quasars. We present measurements of the metallicity of a new sample of 15 sub-damped Lyman-$\alpha$ absorbers (sub-DLAs, defined as absorbers with 19.0 < log N(H I) < 20.3) with redshift 0.584 < $\rm z_{abs}$ < 3.104 from the ESO Ultra-Violet Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample (EUADP). We combine these results with other measurements from the literature to produce a compilation of metallicity measurements for 92 sub-DLAs as well as a sample of 362 DLAs. We apply a multi-element analysis to quantify the amount of dust in these two classes of systems. We find that either the element depletion patterns in these systems differ from the Galactic depletion patterns or they have a different nucleosynthetic history than our own Galaxy. We propose a new method to derive the velocity width of absorption profiles, using the modeled Voigt profile features. The correlation between the velocity width delta_V90 of the absorption profile and the metallicity is found to be tighter for DLAs than for sub-DLAs. We report hints of a bimodal distribution in the [Fe/H] metallicity of low redshift (z < 1.25) sub-DLAs, which is unseen at higher redshifts. This feature can be interpreted as a signature from the metal-poor, accreting gas and the metal-rich, outflowing gas, both being traced by sub-DLAs at low redshifts.Comment: 64 pages, 31 figures, 27 tables. Submitted to MNRA

HST Observations of the Gravitationally Lensed Cloverleaf Broad Absorption Line QSO H1413+1143: Modeling the Lens

We investigate gravitational lens models for the quadruply-lensed Cloverleaf BAL QSO H1413+1143 based on the HST WFPC/WFPC2 astrometric and photometric data of the system by Turnshek et al. and the HST NICMOS-2 data by Falco et al. The accurate image positions and the dust-extinction-corrected relative amplifications, along with a possible detection of the lensing galaxy in the infrared, permit more accurate lens models than were previously possible. While more recent models are qualitatively consistent with the HST data, none of the previous models considered the dust-extinction-corrected relative amplifications of the image components. We use the power-law elliptical mass model to fit the HST data. We find that a single elliptical galaxy perturbed by an external shear can fit the image positions within the observational uncertainties; however, the predicted relative magnifications are only roughly consistent with the observational relative amplifications. We find that a primary galaxy combined with a secondary galaxy in the vicinity of the Cloverleaf or a cluster centered (south-)west of the Cloverleaf can fit both the image positions and relative amplifications within the observational uncertainties. We discuss future observations which could be used to test and/or further constrain lens models of the Cloverleaf.Comment: 23 pages (in aaspp.sty) including 5 tables and 3 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

On the Steady Nature of Line-Driven Disk Winds

We perform an analytic investigation of the stability of line-driven disk winds, independent of hydrodynamic simulations. Our motive is to determine whether or not line-driven disk winds can account for the wide/broad UV resonance absorption lines seen in cataclysmic variables (CVs) and quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). In both CVs and QSOs observations generally indicate that the absorption arising in the outflowing winds has a steady velocity structure on time scales exceeding years (for CVs) and decades (for QSOs). However, published results from hydrodynamic simulations of line-driven disk winds are mixed, with some researchers claiming that the models are inherently unsteady, while other models produce steady winds. The analytic investigation presented here shows that if the accretion disk is steady, then the line-driven disk wind emanating from it can also be steady. In particular, we show that a gravitational force initially increasing along the wind streamline, which is characteristic of disk winds, does not imply an unsteady wind. The steady nature of line-driven disk winds is consistent with the 1D streamline disk-wind models of Murray and collaborators and the 2.5D time-dependent models of Pereyra and collaborators. This paper emphasizes the underlying physics behind the steady nature of line-driven disk winds using mathematically simple models that mimic the disk environmen

On the Steady Nature of Line-Driven Disk Winds: Application to Cataclysmic Variables

We apply the semi-analytical analysis of the steady nature of line-driven winds presented in two earlier papers to disk winds driven by the flux distribution of a standard Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) disk for typical cataclysmic variable (CV) parameters. We find that the wind critical point tends to be closer to the disk surface towards the inner disk regions. Our main conclusion, however, is that a line-driven wind, arising from a steady disk flux distribution of a standard Shakura-Sunyaev disk capable of locally supplying the corresponding mass flow, is steady. These results confirm the findings of an earlier paper that studied "simple" flux distributions that are more readily analyzable than those presented here. These results are consistent with the steady velocity nature of outflows observationally inferred for both CVs and quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). We find good agreement with the 2.5D CV disk wind models of Pereyra and collaborators. These results suggest that the likely scenario to account for the wind outflows commonly observed in CVs is the line-driven accretion disk wind scenario, as suggested early-on by Cordova & Mason (1982). For QSOs, these results show that the line-driven accretion disk wind continues to be a promising scenario to account for the outflows detected in broad absorption line (BAL) QSOs, as suggested early-on by Turnshek (1984), and analyzed in detail by Murray et al. (1995).Comment: 35 pages, 20 figure