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The Metallicity evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha systems

S. Savaglio·N. Panagia·M. Stiavelli
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Abstract

We have collected data for 69 Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems, to investigate the chemical evolution of galaxies in the redshift interval 0.0 < z < 4.4. In doing that, we have adopted the most general approach used so far to correct for dust depletion. The best solution, obtained through chi^2 minimization, gives as output parameters the global DLA metallicity and the dust-to-metals ratio. Clear evolution of the metallicity vs. redshift is found (99.99% significance level), with average values going from ~1/30 solar at z~4.1 to ~3/5 solar at z~0.5. We also find that the majority of DLAs (~60%) shows dust depletion patterns which most closely resemble that of the warm halo clouds in the Milky Way, and have dust-to-metals ratios very close to warm halo clouds.

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S. Savaglio, N. Panagia, M. Stiavelli. 2000-04-27. The Metallicity evolution of Damped Lyman-alpha systems. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912112

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