%0 Generic %1 mackenzie2019linking %A Mackenzie, Ruari %A Fumagalli, Michele %A Theuns, Tom %A Hatton, David J. %A Garel, Thibault %A Cantalupo, Sebastiano %A Christensen, Lise %A Fynbo, Johan P. U. %A Kanekar, Nissim %A Moller, Palle %A O'Meara, John %A Prochaska, J. Xavier %A Rafelski, Marc %A Shanks, Tom %A Trayford, James %D 2019 %K library %T Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyman alpha galaxies at z~3 %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1904.07254 %X We present results from a survey of galaxies in the fields of six z>3 Damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We report a high detection rate of up to ~80% of galaxies within 1000 km/s from DLAs and with impact parameters between 25 and 280 kpc. In particular, we discovered 5 high-confidence Lyman alpha emitters associated with three DLAs, plus up to 9 additional detections across five of the six fields. The majority of the detections are at relatively large impact parameters (>50 kpc) with two detections being plausible host galaxies. Among our detections, we report four galaxies associated with the most metal-poor DLA in our sample (Z/Z_sun = -2.33), which trace an overdense structure resembling a filament. By comparing our detections with predictions from the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) cosmological simulations and a semi-analytic model designed to reproduce the observed bias of DLAs at z>2, we conclude that our observations are consistent with a scenario in which a significant fraction of DLAs trace the neutral regions within halos with a characteristic mass of 10^11-10^12 M_sun, in agreement with the inference made from the large-scale clustering of DLAs. We finally show how larger surveys targeting ~25 absorbers have the potential of constraining the characteristic masses of halos hosting high-redshift DLAs with sufficient accuracy to discriminate between different models.

@misc{mackenzie2019linking, abstract = {We present results from a survey of galaxies in the fields of six z>3 Damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We report a high detection rate of up to ~80% of galaxies within 1000 km/s from DLAs and with impact parameters between 25 and 280 kpc. In particular, we discovered 5 high-confidence Lyman alpha emitters associated with three DLAs, plus up to 9 additional detections across five of the six fields. The majority of the detections are at relatively large impact parameters (>50 kpc) with two detections being plausible host galaxies. Among our detections, we report four galaxies associated with the most metal-poor DLA in our sample (Z/Z_sun = -2.33), which trace an overdense structure resembling a filament. By comparing our detections with predictions from the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) cosmological simulations and a semi-analytic model designed to reproduce the observed bias of DLAs at z>2, we conclude that our observations are consistent with a scenario in which a significant fraction of DLAs trace the neutral regions within halos with a characteristic mass of 10^11-10^12 M_sun, in agreement with the inference made from the large-scale clustering of DLAs. We finally show how larger surveys targeting ~25 absorbers have the potential of constraining the characteristic masses of halos hosting high-redshift DLAs with sufficient accuracy to discriminate between different models.}, added-at = {2019-04-17T05:05:07.000+0200}, author = {Mackenzie, Ruari and Fumagalli, Michele and Theuns, Tom and Hatton, David J. and Garel, Thibault and Cantalupo, Sebastiano and Christensen, Lise and Fynbo, Johan P. U. and Kanekar, Nissim and Moller, Palle and O'Meara, John and Prochaska, J. Xavier and Rafelski, Marc and Shanks, Tom and Trayford, James}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2062789c94ded023d89ff8c50701f7547/gpkulkarni}, description = {Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyman alpha galaxies at z~3}, interhash = {950cf0abd2a03bc323b84af2e35af35a}, intrahash = {062789c94ded023d89ff8c50701f7547}, keywords = {library}, note = {cite arxiv:1904.07254Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. 23 pages, 15 figures plus appendices}, timestamp = {2019-04-17T05:05:07.000+0200}, title = {Linking gas and galaxies at high redshift: MUSE surveys the environments of six damped Lyman alpha galaxies at z~3}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1904.07254}, year = 2019 }