Metallicities and dust content of proximate damped Lyman α systems in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Composite spectra of 85 proximate absorbers [log N(H i) ≥ 20 cm−2 and velocity difference between the absorption and emission redshifts, ΔV < 10 000 km s−1] in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are used to investigate the trends of metal-line strengths with velocity separation from the quasi-stellar object (QSO). We construct composites in three velocity bins: ΔV < 3000 km s−1, 3000 < ΔV < 6000 km s−1 and ΔV > 6000 km s−1, with further sub-samples to investigate the metal-line dependence on N(H i) and QSO luminosity. Low (e.g. Si ii and Fe ii) and high ionization (e.g. Si iv and C iv) species alike have equivalent widths (EWs) that are larger by factors of 1.5–3 in the ΔV < 3000 km s−1 composite, compared to the ΔV > 6000 km s−1 spectrum. The EWs show an even stronger dependence on ΔV if only the highest neutral hydrogen column density [log N(H i) ≥ 20.7] absorbers are considered. We conclude that proximate damped Lyman α systems (PDLAs) generally have higher metallicities than intervening absorbers, with the enhancement being a function of both ΔV and N(H i). It is also found that absorbers near QSOs with lower rest-frame UV luminosities have significantly stronger metal lines. We speculate that absorbers near to high luminosity QSOs may have had their star formation prematurely quenched. There is no evidence for Lyα emission in the trough of the composite spectrum. Finally, we search for the signature of dust reddening by the PDLAs, based on an analysis of the QSO continuum slopes relative to a control sample, and determine a limit of E(B−V) < 0.014 for a Small Magellanic Cloud extinction curve. This work provides an empirical motivation for distinguishing between proximate and intervening DLAs and establishes a connection between the QSO environment and galaxy properties at high redshifts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".