Results from Searches for High-Redshift Galaxies around Damped Lyα Systems

Abstract

There was not much said at this conference about the damped Lyα absorbers, yet locally and at high redshift nearly all the neutral hydrogen in the Universe lies in the damped systems, so they may have much to tell us about when and how galaxies formed. This talk is concerned with the results of narrow-band imaging searches for Lyα emission from, and around, damped Lyα absorbers. There have been many such searches, but very few detections. Here we concentrate on two groups of galaxies at high redshift, z > 2, found by this technique. One of these is a recent discovery (Francis et al. 1995), and for the other we discuss some new observations (Warren and Møller 1995). A study of these two groups provides some clues to the nature of the damped absorbers at high redshift, and the rôle they play in the formation of galaxies.