The Nature of Damped Lyα Absorbing Galaxies at z ≤ 1: A Photometric Redshift Survey of Damped Lyα Absorbers

Abstract

We study the nature of damped Ly? absorption (DLA) systems at z =-17) to the total neutral gas cross section is notnecessary; (4) of the 11 DLA systems studied, 45% are disk dominated,22% are bulge dominated, 11% are irregular, and 22% are in galaxygroups, indicating that galaxies that give rise to the DLA systemsspan a wide range of morphological types and arise in a variety ofgalaxy environments; and (5) galaxies that contain the bulk of neutralgas in the universe do not appear to exhibit a substantial luminosityevolution between z=0 and 1.