NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING OF SIX METAL-RICH QUASAR ABSORBER GALAXY FIELDS

Lorrie A. Straka, Varsha P. Kulkarni, Donald G. York
2011 Astronomical Journal  
Absorption lines in quasar spectra allow us to locate and study intervening galaxies. In order to obtain a clearer picture of these absorber galaxies, we have used the Near-Infrared Camera Fabry-Perot System at Apache Point Observatory to obtain near-infrared broadband images in one or more filters (J and K s ) of six quasar fields containing metal-rich low-z damped or sub-damped Lyα systems. These data allow us to search for the galaxies and constrain their luminosities. Candidate absorber
more » ... xies are detected at 2. 01-7. 38 separation from the quasar in three out of six fields in the J and K s bands at >3σ level with luminosities ranging from log(L/L ) = 10.44-10.36 in the J band (for E-Sc type galaxies) and log(L/L ) = 11.59-10.03 in the K s band for our detections. We place limits on the remaining fields with no detections of log(L/L ) < 10.83-9.75 for the J band and log(L/L ) < 10.43-10.05 for the K s band. We are also able to utilize Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra for each field to calculate optical fluxes and limits as well as limits on star formation rate via [O ii]λ3727 emission in spectra. Our data, combined with other recent imaging results for metal-rich absorbers, suggest a possible positive correlation between absorber metallicity and galaxy luminosity, although the samples are still small.
doi:10.1088/0004-6256/141/6/206 fatcat:mtbzu645sbdiflqu6zjc2tckmi