The Fundamental Plane of Damped Lyα Systems

摘要: Using a sample of 100 H I-selected damped Lyα (DLA) systems, observed with the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer on Keck I telescope, we present evidence that scatter in well-studied correlation between redshift and metallicity DLA is largely due to existence mass-metallicity relationship at each redshift. To describe fundamental relations exist redshift, metallicity, mass, use plane description, which described by following equation: [M/H] = (– 1.9 ± 0.5) + (0.74 0.21) centerdot logΔv_90 – (0.32 0.06) z. Here, assert velocity width, Δv_90, defined as interval containing 90% integrated optical depth, traces mass underlying dark matter halo. This description provides two significant improvements over individual descriptions metallicity-redshift correlation. Firstly, equation reduces around both relationships about 20%, providing more stringent constraint numerical simulations modeling DLAs. Secondly, it confirms halos host DLAs satisfy redshifts 2 through 5.