AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 120 Intergalactic Medium and Absorption Line Systems
Poster, Wednesday, 9:20am-6:30pm, January 11, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[120.02] Evolution of the Kinematics of Strong MgII Absorbers

A. Mshar, J. Charlton (Penn State), C. Churchill (New Mexico State University), T.S. Kim (Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam)

We present 21 strong MgII absorption line systems at 1.2 < z < 2.5, found in a survey of UVES/VLT quasar spectra obtained from the ESO archive. Strong MgII absorbers, with a minimum rest frame equivalent width of 0.3 Å, are generally associated with luminous galaxies. Our comparison of the MgII, FeII, and MgI absorption profiles of these strong MgII absorbers to a sample of absorbers at 0.4 < z < 1.2 (Churchill and Vogt 2001) thus enables a study of galaxy evolution. We compare kinematics, apparent column densities, and ratios of FeII and MgI to MgII between the high and low redshift samples. Preliminary results indicate generally similar kinematics, with a possible evolution of "satellite clouds", with more of them found at lower redshift. This would have implications for the origin and evolution of the high velocity cloud populations of giant galaxies. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation grant NSF AST-07138 and by an NSF REU supplement.


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