Discovery of a Damped Lyα Absorber Originating in a Spectacular Interacting Dwarf Galaxy Pair at z = 0.026

February 2022 • 2022ApJ...926L..33B

Authors • Boettcher, Erin • Gupta, Neeraj • Chen, Hsiao-Wen • Chen, Mandy C. • Józsa, Gyula I. G. • Rudie, Gwen C. • Cantalupo, Sebastiano • Johnson, Sean D. • Balashev, S. A. • Combes, Françoise • Cooksey, Kathy L. • Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André • Krogager, Jens-Kristian • Lopez, Sebastian • Momjian, Emmanuel • Noterdaeme, Pasquier • Petitjean, Patrick • Rafelski, Marc • Srianand, Raghunathan • Walth, Gregory L. • Zahedy, Fakhri S.

Abstract • We present the discovery of neutral gas detected in both damped Lyα absorption (DLA) and H I 21 cm emission outside of the stellar body of a galaxy, the first such detection in the literature. A joint analysis between the Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey and the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey reveals an H I bridge connecting two interacting dwarf galaxies (log (M _star/M _⊙) = 8.5 ± 0.2) that host a z = 0.026 DLA with log[N(H I)/cm^-2] = 20.60 ± 0.05 toward the QSO J2339-5523 (z _QSO = 1.35). At impact parameters of d = 6 and 33 kpc, the dwarf galaxies have no companions more luminous than ≈0.05L _* within at least Δv = ±300 km s^-1 and d ≈ 350 kpc. The H I 21 cm emission is spatially coincident with the DLA at the 2σ-3σ level per spectral channel over several adjacent beams. However, H I 21 cm absorption is not detected against the radio-bright QSO; if the background UV and radio sources are spatially aligned, the gas is either warm or clumpy (with a spin temperature to covering factor ratio T _s /f _c > 1880 K). Observations with VLT-MUSE demonstrate that the α-element abundance of the ionized interstellar medium (ISM) is consistent with the DLA (≈10% solar), suggesting that the neutral gas envelope is perturbed ISM gas. This study showcases the impact of dwarf-dwarf interactions on the physical and chemical state of neutral gas outside of star-forming regions. In the SKA era, joint UV and H I 21 cm analyses will be critical for connecting the cosmic neutral gas content to galaxy environments.

Links

• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.04669
• NED https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/uri/NED::InRefcode/2022ApJ...926L..33B
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.3847%2F2041-8213%2Fac5250
• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2022ApJ...926L..33B
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac5250/pdf
• DATA http://archive.eso.org/bin/ads2eso?2022ApJ...926L..33B