The most metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at z>1.5 I: The Data

TL;DR

This paper presents high-resolution spectroscopic data for 44 metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at redshifts above 1.5, providing detailed metal column densities to study chemically evolved galaxies in the early universe.

Contribution

It offers a new, high-resolution dataset of the most metal-rich damped Lyman alpha systems at z>1.5, expanding the sample of chemically evolved high-redshift galaxies.

Findings

Sample probes the top 10% of metal column densities at high redshift.

Provides detailed measurements of multiple metal ions for 44 systems.

Sets the stage for analyzing chemical enrichment in a companion study.

Abstract

We present HIRES observations for 30 damped Lyman alpha systems, selected on the basis of their large metal column densities from previous, lower resolution data. The measured metal column densities for Fe, Zn, S, Si, Cr, Mn, and Ni are provided for these 30 systems. Combined with previously observed large metal column density damped Lyman alpha systems, we present a sample of 44 damped Lyman alpha systems observed with high resolution spectrographs (R~30000). These damped Lyman alpha systems probe the most chemically evolved systems at redshifts greater than 1.5. We discuss the context of our sample with the general damped Lyman alpha population, demonstrating that we are probing the top 10% of metal column densities with our sample. In a companion paper, we will present an analysis of the sample's elemental abundances in the context of galactic chemical enrichment.