NICMOS Imaging of Damped Ly-α Absorbers at z = 2

Abstract

We report results from deep NICMOS imaging of the fields of two damped Lyman-α (DLA) quasar absorbers at Z_(DLA) = 1.89 and Z_(DLA) = 1.86. The images were obtained in the broad filter F160W and the narrow filter F190N or F187N with camera 2 on NICMOS, with the goal of detecting the rest-frame optical continuum and H-α emission from the DLA absorbers. The broad band images put sensitive constraints on the sizes of the DLAs, while the narrow band images put the tightest existing limits on the star formation rates in DLAs. These results have important implications for the physical nature of DLA absorbers.

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