Sub-damped Lyman α systems in the XQ-100 survey – I. Identification and contribution to the cosmological H i budget

Author:

Berg Trystyn A M12ORCID,Ellison Sara L2ORCID,Sánchez-Ramírez Rubén34,López Sebastián5,D’Odorico Valentina67,Becker George D8ORCID,Christensen Lise9ORCID,Cupani Guido6,Denney Kelly D10,Worseck Gábor1112

Affiliation:

1. European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Casilla 19001, Santiago, Chile

2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 1A1, Canada

3. INAF, Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, I-00133 Roma, Italy

4. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, E-18008 Granada, Spain

5. Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile

6. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy

7. Scuola Normale Superiore Piazza dei Cavalieri, 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy

8. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA

9. DARK, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Lyngbyvej 2, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

10. Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

11. Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

12. Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universität Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str 24/25, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany

Abstract

Abstract Sub-damped Lyman α systems (subDLAs; H i column densities of 19.0 ≤ logN(H i) < 20.3) are rarely included in the cosmic H i census performed at redshifts zabs ≳ 1.5, yet are expected to contribute significantly to the overall H i mass budget of the Universe. In this paper, we present a blindly selected sample of 155 subDLAs found along 100 quasar sightlines (with a redshift path-length ΔX = 475) in the XQ-100 legacy survey to investigate the contribution of subDLAs to the H i mass density of the Universe. The impact of X-Shooter’s spectral resolution on Ly α absorber identification is evaluated, and found to be sufficient for reliably finding absorbers down to a column density of logN(H i) ≥ 18.9. We compared the implications of searching for subDLAs solely using H i absorption versus the use of metal lines to confirm the identification, and found that metal-selection techniques would have missed 75 subDLAs. Using a bootstrap Monte Carlo simulation, we computed the column density distribution function (f(N, X)) and the cosmological H i mass density ($\Omega _{\rm H\,{\small I}}$) of subDLAs and compared with our previous work based on the XQ-100 damped Lyman α systems. We do not find any significant redshift evolution in f(N, X) or $\Omega _{\rm H\,{\small I}}$ for subDLAs. However, subDLAs contribute 10–20 per cent of the total $\Omega _{\rm H\,{\small I}}$ measured at redshifts 2 < z < 5, and thus have a small but significant contribution to the H i budget of the Universe.

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

Space and Planetary Science,Astronomy and Astrophysics

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