THE RAPID DECLINE IN METALLICITY OF DAMPED Lyα SYSTEMS AT z ∼ 5
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 (United States)
- Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, 1156 High Street, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
We present evidence that the cosmological mean metallicity of neutral atomic hydrogen gas shows a sudden decrease at z > 4.7 down to 〈Z〉=−2.03{sub −0.11}{sup +0.09}, which is 6σ deviant from that predicted by a linear fit to the data at lower redshifts. This measurement is made possible by the chemical abundance measurements of eight new damped Lyα (DLA) systems at z > 4.7 observed with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager on the Keck II Telescope, doubling the number of measurements at z > 4.7 to 16. Possible explanations for this sudden decrease in metallicity include a change in the physical processes that enrich the neutral gas within disks, or an increase of the covering factor of neutral gas outside disks due to a lower ultraviolet radiation field and higher density at high redshift. The later possibility would result in a new population of presumably lower metallicity DLAs, with an increased contribution to the DLA population at higher redshifts resulting in a reduced mean metallicity. Furthermore, we provide evidence of a possible decrease at z > 4.7 in the comoving metal mass density of DLAs, ρ{sub metals}(z){sub DLA}, which is flat out to z ∼ 4.3. Such a decrease is expected, as otherwise most of the metals from star-forming galaxies would reside in DLAs by z ∼ 6. While the metallicity is decreasing at high redshift, the contribution of DLAs to the total metal budget of the universe increases with redshift, with DLAs at z ∼ 4.3 accounting for ∼20% as many metals as produced by Lyman break galaxies.
- OSTI ID:
- 22363974
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 782, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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