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# Building Blocks in Hierarchical Clustering Scenarios and their Connection with Damped Ly𝛼 Systems

## 1 Introduction

Our understanding of the Universe has improved dramatically in the last decades due to the outstanding discoveries made by large orbiting and ground-based telescopes. In particular, Damped Ly$`\alpha `$ absorptions identified in the spectra of distant quasars provide clues on the chemical and kinematic properties of systems at different redshifts. However, the nature of the host of the absorbing neutral hydrogen ($`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$) clouds (hereafter DLA galaxies) remains unclear. At low redshift, identified DLAs are associated with galaxies of different morphologies with a preference for dwarf and low surface brigthness ones (Le Brun et al. 1997; Rao & Turnsheck 2000), while at higher $`z`$, there is no clear evidence of the morphological characteristics of the DLA galaxies.

Different models have been proposed to explain the kinematics of DLAs. In particular, Haehnelt et al. (1998), by using hydrodynamical simulations, have found that the features in the velocity width distributions of these systems could be reproduced by the substructure in Cold Dark Matter models (see also MacDonald & Miralda-Escudé 1999). Other mechanisms have been suggested as responsible for producing such velocity distributions. Among them, Nulsen, Barcons & Fabian (1998) claimed that massive out-flows from dwarf galaxies could account for the majority of DLA systems in their semi-analytical models for galaxy formation (see also Schaye 2001a).

¿From the point of view of chemical evolution, abundance ratios suggest that DLAs are young systems with a low metallicity content which seems not to evolve significantly from very high $`z`$ to present days (e.g., Prochaska & Wolfe 2002). However, several biasing factors may be affecting these conclusions. Dust depletion and obscuration are a main source of uncertainties for the determination of some element abundances (e.g., Vladilo 1998). However, the estimations of the amount of depletion and obscuration by dust for each element is a complex task which have produced different results (Vladilo 2002; Prochaska & Wolfe 2002). Another important effect is that DLAs with high metallicity and high column density are missing from the data (e.g., Boissé et al. 1998; Hou et al. 2001). Traditionally, the lack of these systems has been interpreted as a bias produced by dust obscuration. However, first analysis of DLAs identified from a radio selected QSO survey by Ellison et al. (2001) could suggest that such sort of DLAs might not be present at all in nature since the selection of this sample should not be dust biased. Howerver, a larger database is needed before reaching a solid conclusion.

The chemical properties of the absorbers might be affected by different processes such as star formation, energy feedback, etc., and by different mixing mechanisms like those produced by tidal forces and mergers. These processes depend on the history of evolution of each galaxy which may be also affected by its environment (see Ellison & López 2001). Hence, it is not simple to envisage a model (e.g., Mathlin et al. 2001) to explain DLA properties and to relate them to the characteristics of the associated DLA galaxies, even more, if the internal structure of the systems and environmental effects ought to be taken into account.

DLAs observations provide clues on the chemical evolution of the observable neutral H mass in the Universe. Since the metallicity of the ISM is the result of the effects of different physical processes such as stellar evolution, mergers, interactions, collapses, etc., with some of them depending also on the cosmology, it is relevant for a galaxy formation model to be able to reproduce them. In this way, the individual and global chemical properties of the matter can be used as tests for galaxy formation and cosmological models. Hydrodynamical cosmological simulations are adequate tools to tackle these problems since the dynamical range that can be resolved allows the statistical description of internal properties of the galactic objects such as mass distributions and star formation histories, as well as mergers and interactions (see Somerville et al. 2001 for a semianalitical approach).

Tissera et al. (2001, Paper I) used a chemical model coupled to a hydrodynamical cosmological code to analyse the metallicity properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) of the galactic objects when mapped by random LOSs. These authors found that the chemical abundances obtained in such a way were comparable to those measured from DLAs observations. Their results support the hypothesis that at least part of the observed DLAs could originate in the building blocks of current normal galaxies, in agreement with those found by Haehnelt et al. (1998) from a kinematic analysis. In this paper we extend their work, making a more detailed analysis and comparison between the simulated and new observed DLAs. We also analyse comparatively the properties of the stellar populations intercepted by the LOSs and consequently associated to the DLAs, and those of the total stellar populations of their host galaxies.

## 2 Numerical Models

The hydrodynamical chemical simulations analysed follow the joint evolution of dark matter and baryons within a cosmological context (Tissera et al. 1997), including star formation and chemical evolution. The hydrodynamical equations have been implemented in the AP3M gravitational code (Thomas & Couchman 1992) by using the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. Baryons are initially assumed to be in the form of gas. Dense and gaseous regions in convergent flows are gradually transformed into stars at different star formation (SF) episodes, according to the Schmidt law. A star formation efficiency ($`c`$) has to be assumed to regulate this process.

The chemical model used in this paper has been discussed in detail by Mosconi et al. (2001). Briefly, it is a self-consistent implementation that considers the chemical evolution of the SP and ISM taking into account the contributions of different SP generations. Type Ia (SNIa) and type II (SNII) supernovae are taken into account according to stellar evolution models and chemical enrichment yields. We adopted the yields given by Woosley & Weaver (1995) for SNII and by Thielemann, Nomoto & Hashimoto (1993) for SNIa. We assumed a fixed Salpeter Initial Mass Function with lower and upper mass cut-offs of $`0.1\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`120\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, respectively. Chemical elements generated in a given particle are distributed within its neighboring area, weighting each contribution with a kernel function that depends on the relative distance between gaseous particles. The distribution of metals by using the SPH technique results in an effective mixing mechanism that allows the enrichment of regions that are nearby to star-forming particles (see Lia et al. 2002 for a different implementation of the mixing process).

Although we stress the relevance of the energy injection into the interstellar medium due to supernovae explosions in the formation of the galaxies, we have not included this mechanism in this work. Several attempts to implement energy feedback in SPH codes can be found in the scientific literature (e.g., Katz 1992; Navarro & White 1994; Metzler & Evrard 1994; Navarro & Steinmetz 2000; Springel 2000), although they are still quite controversial.

The simulations studied in this paper followed the cosmological evolution of typical $`5h^1`$ Mpc ($`h=0.5`$) cubic volumes represented by $`64^3`$ equal mass particles ($`M_\mathrm{p}=1.4\times 10^8h^1M_{}`$). Initial conditions are consistent with a Standard Cold Dark Matter (SCDM) Universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.10`$, $`H_0=100h^1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$) with cluster abundance normalization, $`\sigma _8=0.67`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. We used a gravitational softening $`ϵ_\mathrm{g}=1.5`$ kpc and a minimal smoothing length of $`ϵ_\mathrm{g}/2`$ (see Section 3.1 for a discussion on numerical effects).

In Paper I, we analysed a set of three simulations (S.2, S.6 and S.7), each one representing different realizations of the power spectrum run by Mosconi et al. (2001). As shown by these authors, at $`z=0`$ these simulations reproduced galactic systems with mean metal abundances in agreement with observations. However, when the abundance patterns of the stellar populations in the individual galactic systems were analysed in detail, we found that none of them resembled fairly well that of the Milky-Way, although averaged abundances are within observed values. Therefore, we run a new simulation (S.8) with different SN parameters in order to be able to have systems with chemical abundance patterns similar to those of the Galaxy (i.e., we have increased $`c`$ and the ratio between SNII and SNIa rates). For SNIa, we have adopted a life-time for progenitor binary systems of 0.5 Gyr. However, note that we do not know how common the Milky-Way abundance patterns are among similar morphological type galaxies (Wolfe et al. 2000), so we consider that both set of simulated objects can provide useful information about the chemical evolution of the structure in hierarchical clustering models. In this paper we will focuse the analysis on simulation S.8.

## 3 Simulated DLA galaxies and DLA Systems

Following the hypothesis that the progenitors of today normal galaxies in hierarchical scenarios could be the host galaxies of the observed DLAs, we carried out a comparative analysis of the mean chemical properties of the simulated DLA galaxies and DLA systems. The former are given by the ISM and SP residing in dark matter structures that are detected by an overdensity criterium. On the other hand, random LOSs are drawn through these structures following the observational procedure used to detect them. Simulated DLAs correspond to those LOSs that map regions where the neutral hydrogen column density $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ is greater than $`10^{20}\mathrm{atoms}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

### 3.1 Galaxy-like Objects

We identified galactic objects at different stages of evolution of the simulated volumes. Firstly, a friend-of-friend method is used to isolate the higher density peaks in the mass distribution, and then, a density-contrast algorithm is applied to find over-densities with $`\delta \rho /\rho 200`$. The selected galactic objects are the building blocks of today normal galaxies which grew by accretion and/or mergers. The rate of mergers as well as the distribution of merger parameters are determined by the cosmological model adopted. The main baryonic clump within a virialized structure will be, hereafter, referred to as the galaxy-like object (GLO), and it constitutes what we also call simulated DLA galaxy. GLOs have been truncated at two optical radius, $`2R_{\mathrm{opt}}`$, where $`R_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ has been defined as the radius which encloses $`83\%`$ of the baryonic mass.

For the purpose of diminishing numerical resolution problems, we analyse galactic objects with more than 200 baryonic particles within their virial radius and in the redshift range $`0.25<z<2.35`$. The final sample is made of 166 GLOs that satisfy the above conditions and have virial velocities within $`100250\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Owing to the fact that all particles have the same mass, the selected objects have well resolved dark matter haloes (more than 2000 particles) providing well-defined potential wells onto which, on its turn, baryons can settle on (Steinmetz & White 1997). Hence, although the baryonic mass resolution is low compared to other simulations (e.g., Cen et al. 2003), the gaseous density profiles are well described. This is an important point since the star formation rate and, consequently, the metal production, is proportional to the gas density (e.g., Tissera 2000), and hence it depends on how well the profiles are described.

As a combined result of dynamical evolution, mergers and interactions, the SF rate history of each galactic object in hierarchical clustering scenarios can be described as a contribution of an ambient SF rate and a series of starbursts (e.g., Tissera 2000). In our models, the timing between starbursts are given naturally by the evolution of the objects in the hierarchical clustering scenario adopted. As discussed by Tissera (2000 and references therein), Tissera et al. (2001) and suggested by recent observations (e.g., Barton, Geller & Kenyon 2000; Le Fevre et al. 2000; Lambas et al. 2003) mergers and interactions play a crucial role in triggering SF and consequently, may leave important imprints in the chemical patterns of galaxies (Prantzos & Boissier 2000). Our model provides a consistent description of these processes as well as including the contributions of SNIa and SNII consistently with the SF histories of the objects.

In order to understand how metals are distributed within the GLOs, we have considered concentric shells centred at the GLO mass centre. The shells have an outer fixed radius of $`2R_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ and an inner radius $`r`$, which varies from $`r=0`$ to $`r=10`$ kpc. For each shell, we define the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ mass-weighted mean abundance ratio of elements K and J, \[K/J\]gas as:

$$[\mathrm{K}/\mathrm{J}]^{\mathrm{gas}}=\mathrm{log}\frac{_{i=1}^{n_\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{K}_iM_i^{\mathrm{gas}}}{_{i=1}^{n_\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{J}_iM_i^{\mathrm{gas}}}\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{K}/\mathrm{J})_{}$$
(1)
where $`n_\mathrm{p}`$ is the total number of gas particles belonging to a GLO , $`M_i^{\mathrm{gas}}`$ the hydrogen remnant in the $`i^{th}`$ particle, $`\mathrm{K}_i`$ and $`\mathrm{J}_i`$ their chemical abundances, and $`(\mathrm{K}/\mathrm{J})_{}`$ the corresponding solar abundance ratio. Similar estimations can be defined for stars by summing up over the stellar populations. These analysis provides us with information on the metallicity distribution of the gaseous and stellar components in each galactic system as a function of $`z`$. It has to be noted that in these models we are not able to distinguish between ionized and neutral gas, therefore we assume that both phases have the same chemical abundances.

### 3.2 Simulated DLAs

Observations of DLAs provide information on the chemical properties of the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ components belonging to structures lying along LOSs towards QSOs. Specifically, DLAs are defined as those $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ components with column density $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})higherthan2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{atoms}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Wolfe et al. 1986). In the simulations, the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ components of the main baryonic clump (i.e., the GLO) within the virial radius of the galactic object will be considered as possible absorbers. Following Tissera et al. (2001), we use Monte Carlo technique to draw LOSs through GLOs and estimate the chemical properties of the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ components with $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})>2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{atoms}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ along them. For each LOS drawn through a GLO at a certain $`z`$ we estimate the chemical abundances of the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ component along it by applying Eq.1., but where the sum is now defined over the particles which are situated along a given LOS. Three different DLA mock catalogs have been produced by generating three different random observers and drawing a LOS through each GLO from each of the three observers. In this way, we generated a total of 380 DLAs distributed between $`z=0.26`$ and $`z=2.3`$.

Owing to geometrical considerations, random LOSs tend to map with higher probability the properties of the outer regions of the absorbing systems, missing information coming from the central regions (e.g., Jimenez et al. 1999; Somerville et al. 2001; Savaglio 2000). Note that impact of geometrical effects depends on the absorber redshift as we will discuss later on. It still remains to be answered how representative of the properties of their hosting structures these observations are (e.g. Pettini 2003). This is one of the aims of this paper since the simulations provide information on both the DLA system and its host galaxy.

For this purpose, we estimate the impact parameter $`b`$ in kpc as a function of $`z`$. The $`b`$ parameters found in the simulations take values from few up to $`60`$ kpc with a mean of $`15`$ kpc, again showing the fact that random LOSs tend to map preferentially the outer regions of the baryonic main clumps. We found that for the absorbers at $`z<1`$, the percentage with $`b5`$ kpc is $`39\%`$ of the total, while at $`z>1`$ this percentage goes down to $`21\%`$. In terms of the virial radius, we found that regions causing the absorptions are between $`5\%`$ to $`25\%`$ of the virial radius of the galactic objects. This result is in marginal agreement with that reported by Haehnelt et al. (2000), but it is roughly consistent with the expected scale-length of a centrifugally supported disk if the specific angular momentum of baryons is assumed to be conserved during disk formation. This difference found between the results of Haehnelt et al. and ours may be due to the fact that our simulations include star formation. The transformation of gas into stars has non-negligible effects on the gas dynamics, specially during violent events as reported by Mihos & Hernquist (1996) and Domíniguez-Tenreiro, Tissera & Sáiz (1998), among others. We also detect a slight trend for this average percentage to increase with $`z`$.

## 4 Metallicity Evolution

In this Section we analyse different statistical moments of the metallicity of the ISM and the associated SPs intercepted by random LOS. We will analyse the variation of unweighted and mass-weighted means of different abundances with redshift. We will also apply linear regression through the data to quantify possible evolutional signal. The mass weighted mean abundances as a function of redshift provide clues on the global metallicity content of the Universe, while linear regressions through the data or unweighted means give idea on the changes in the chemical abundances of the individual galactic objects.

The chemical elements more commonly used to assess the metallicity properties of DLAs are zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe). The Zn is usually considered a reliable tracer of metallicity since it is weakly depleted onto dust. However, its poorly understood nucleosynthesis and the difficulty to be detected at low metallicity make this element troublesome to interpret. On the other hand, the Fe is heavily depleted onto dust grains but it is less biased than Zn against low metallicity DLAs, and its nucleosynthesis is well understood.

The so-called $`\alpha `$-elements (e.g., silicon (Si), sulphur (S), calcium (Ca), oxygen (O)) are also observed in DLAs although some of them could be importantly affected by dust depletion. The dust-to-gas ratio is larger for refractory elements and varies with environment making corrections complicated (Vladilo 2002). The simulated sample is not affected by dust depletion or obscuration, neither it is biased against low or high metallicity column densities, hence these simulations are a powerful tool to explore the nature of DLAs.

In order to properly confront our results with observations, we have gathered the available observational data of DLAs within our redshift range of interest and applied to them the same analysis performed to the simulated DLAs. We have chosen to use the data provided by Vladilo (2002) since they include self-consistent dust corrected values making them more suitable to constrain the results obtained from our simulations which do not include dust effects. This observational sample includes data from several authors and, in particular, overlaps with the data base analysed by Prochaska & Wolfe (2002).

### 4.1 The Interstellar Medium

For the purpose of assessing possible signals of global or intrinsic evolution through the comparison of means at different redshift intervals (e.g., Prochaska & Wolfe 2000), we split both the observed and simulated samples into two redshift bins: $`z_{\mathrm{low}}=[0.25,1.5]`$ and $`z_{\mathrm{inter}}=(1.5,2.35]`$. Following Tissera et al. (2001), we first estimate at each analysed $`z`$ the unweighted mean $`[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{H}]=1/n_n[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{H}]`$ for Zn, Fe and Si abundance ratios (represented by X in the previous equation) for the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ along the LOSs intercepting the GLOs (where $`n`$ is the number of LOSs at a given $`z`$). The $`[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]`$ and $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$ values at each $`z`$ are shown in Fig.1 as filled circles with error bars indicating 1$`\sigma `$ standard deviations. Regarding the dispersions in the simulated DLAs sample, we found that they are comparable to the dust corrected data from Vladilo (2002) as it can be also appreciated from Fig.1. Table 1 summarizes the observed estimations for the data presented by Vladilo (2002) ($`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{obs}}`$, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{inter}}}^{\mathrm{obs}}`$) and those corresponding to the simulated DLAs ($`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{low}}}^{\mathrm{sim}}`$, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{inter}}}^{\mathrm{sim}}`$)

We will refer to the difference between the unweighted means of a given abundance ratio (\[X/Y\]) estimated for the simulated DLAs at the two adopted redshift intervals as $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{Y}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}`$. In the case of \[Zn/H\], the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}`$ yields an intrinsic evolution of $`0.23\pm 0.09`$ dex for the simulated DLAs. A linear regression through the simulated sample gives an anti-correlation signal with a slope of $`d\mathrm{log}[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]/dz=0.26\pm 0.04`$ dex. In both cases, errors have been estimated by using the re-sampling bootstrap technique with 500 random samples. Estimates of the unweighted mean $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}`$ at low and intermediate redshift bins and a linear regression show an intrinsic evolution in the simulated sample of $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}=0.33\pm 0.11`$ dex, and $`d\mathrm{log}[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]/dz=0.36\pm 0.05`$ dex, respectively. The linear regressions trough the \[Zn/H\] and \[Fe/H\] abundance ratios for the whole sample of simulated DLAs are depicted in Fig.1.

Table 1 summarizes the linear regressions obtained for the simulated and observed DLAs with and without dust corrections. Table 2 gives the differences between the unweighted means estimated at the two adopted redshift bins for different abundance ratios obtained from the simulated DLAs ($`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{Y}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}`$). This table also shows the corresponding values for the observed DLAs reported by Vladilo (2002) with and without dust corrections ($`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{Y}]_{\mathrm{dust}}^{\mathrm{obs}}_\mathrm{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{Y}]^{\mathrm{obs}}_\mathrm{u}`$, respectively).

The cosmic mean metal evolution can be estimated by calculating the difference of $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ mass weighted averages at the low and intermediate redshift bins ($`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{X}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{w}`$). These estimations yield an evolution of $`0.51\pm 0.39`$ dex, $`0.85\pm 0.48`$ dex and $`0.72\pm 0.59`$ dex for the \[Zn/H\], \[Fe/H\] and \[Si/H\], repectively (bootstrap errors given, BE). Note that although the values are large, the BE errors indicate that they are statistically consistent with non-evolution within $`2\sigma _{\mathrm{BE}}`$. Table 3 summarizes these differences for both, simulations and observations.

Overall, we acknowledge higher evolution signal in our simulated DLA sample than that obtained from the dust-corrected sample of Vladilo (2002), although the bootstrap errors of the observations are quite high suggesting that the sample suffers of low statistical number. We will come back to this point in Section 5.

### 4.2 Stellar Populations

DLAs are $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds detected in absorption providing no direct information on the SPs associated to the absorber. One of the advantages of our models is that we can compute the metallicity properties of the stars situated along the LOSs.

In this case, we find an intrinsic evolution signal of $`0.23\pm 0.13`$ dex (BE) for the \[Zn/H\], $`0.16\pm 0.13`$ dex for the \[Fe/H\] and $`0.15\pm 0.17`$ dex for the \[Si/H\], over the $`z`$-range of interest. In Fig.2, we plot the unweighted mean abundance ratios at each analysed redshift (filled circles) and the dust-corrected data of Vladilo (2002; open pentagons).

We also define the stellar mass weighted mean metallicity of the SPs along LOSs. The difference between these mean values at the low and intermediate redshift bins indicates a global evolution of $`1.00\pm 0.48`$ dex (BE), $`0.84\pm 0.34`$ dex and $`0.92\pm 0.57`$ dex for the \[Zn/H\], \[Fe/H\] and \[Si/H\], respectively.

The degree of intrinsic and global evolution detected in the simulated SPs and the ISMs are comparable (within $`2\sigma _{\mathrm{BE}}`$) suggesting that both mass components reflect similarly the rate of enrichment of the galactic objects as they evolve. In order to quantify if they have the same amount of enrichment, we calculated the difference between the SP abundances and those corresponding to the gaseous component along each simulated LOS. For the unweighted means, we found that stars are always less metal-rich by, on average, $`0.50`$ dex ($`0.40`$ dex for \[Zn/H\] and $`0.70`$ dex for \[Fe/H\]) than the ISM where they inhabit at any redshift, while the weighted means are very similar. These results indicate that, in these models, there are stellar populations that have lower metallicities compared to those of their associated DLAs, but represent a small percentage of the total stellar mass; while a larger fraction of stars is as metal rich as the ISMs they are embedded in, at both redshift intervals. It is very interesting to note that the importance of this segregation in the abundances of the SP and the ISM identified along random LOSs depends on the chemical element considered. The so-called $`\alpha `$-elements show a smaller difference than those mainly produced by SNIa. The difference is originated in the distinct star formation histories of the regions and the time delay between the two kind of SN events (Tissera et al. 2002).

Finally, we find that the dispersions of abundances of the SPs are higher than those measured for the ISMs (see Table 1) along LOSs, showing that abundances of stars in regions mapped by those LOSs are more heterogeneous (for example, the \[Fe/H\] show $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{inter}}}=0.74`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{low}}}=0.85`$, and for \[Si/H\] we have $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{inter}}}=0.66`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{z}_{\mathrm{low}}}=0.70`$).

The simulated abundances and their dispersions are a consequence of the variety of GLOs with different evolutionary histories. The fact that their ISMs when mapped by random LOSs show similar chemical properties to those measured in DLAs supports the hypothesis that DLAs absorptions can be actually produced by a mixture of galaxy types. Since we are simulating typical field regions of the Universe, the majority of the GLOs are supposed to represent typical spirals at $`z=0`$ with some contributions from other morphological types (Dressler 1999). As we go to higher $`z`$, the substructures that have merged to form them start to emerge as separate entities. The mixture of the properties of these progenitor objects gives rise to the chemical characteristics of the simulated absorption clouds and the SPs.

## 5 Dependence of metallicity on column density

There is evidence showing that high metallicity and high column density DLAs are missing from the observational data. However, it is not clear if this is owing to the depletion of metals onto dust from the diffuse phase, to geometrical effects, or if they are not present at all in nature. Boissé et al. (1998) estimated an observational region where all observed DLAs lay, defined as $`F=[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]+\mathrm{log}N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ with $`18.8<F<21`$. In order to mimic in the models the observational lack of high metallicity and high column density DLAs, we followed Prantzos & Boissier (2000) and applied this observational filter to the simulated sample. We found that $`30\%`$ of the sample is cast out, with $`19\%`$ having $`F>21`$. These DLAs are high metallicity and high column density absorbers.

Estimations of the evolution signals for the filtered simulated DLAs sample indicate that both intrinsic and global evolution are much weaker than those obtained from the original simulated sample, as it can be seen from Tables 1, 2 and 3. The difference of unweighted means for the filtered sample are $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}=0.03\pm 0.09`$ dex, $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}=0.21\pm 0.08`$ dex and $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{u}=0.19\pm 0.08`$ dex, while for the mass weighted means are $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Zn}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{w}=0.14\pm 0.04`$ dex, $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{w}=0.24\pm 0.21`$ dex and $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{fil}}^{\mathrm{sim}}_\mathrm{w}=0.27\pm 0.09`$ dex. We have also carried out estimations of evolution by applying only the upper limit of the observational filter finding very similar results. Hence, the high column density and high metallicity DLAs are the ones imprinting signals of intrinsic and global evolution.

The physical processes that cause the non-detectability of such HI clouds remains to be explained. Although dust can account for it as it has been reported by several authors (e.g., Hou et al. 2001), recent results from a study of DLAs against radio-selected QSOs (Ellison et al. 2001) suggest that dust may not be as important as previously thought since high column density DLAs have not been detected yet in this sample. In the simulations we found that the percentage of DLAs with these characteristics (i.e., outside the upper limit of the observed filter) is only $`3\%`$ and $`16\%`$ at $`z>1`$ and $`z<1`$, respectively. Hence, according to our results, the radio-selected sample is still small to discard geometrical effects as a possible cause, since most observed DLAs are at $`z>1`$ (Cen et al. 2003). Moreover, because the filtered simulated DLAs are more consistent with the dust-corrected sample, our findings do not support the hypothesis that this upper observational limit is caused by dust obscuration but they favour geometrical effects 111An alternative option is proposed by Schaye (2001b) who claims that the maximum $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ column density is determined by the conversion to molecular hydrogen. The fraction of molecular H correlates with dust content and total hydrogen, and anticorrelates with the intensity of the incident UV radiation. However, this author does not discard dust effects as the possible explanation of the apparent lack of systems with low column density and high metallicity which cannot be accounted for by his models. .

We can use the simulations to explore the characteristics of DLAs cast out by the filter. In Fig.3, we plot the stellar mass along the LOSs versus the filter $`F`$. The dashed-dotted lines depict the limits established by the observational filter. Stellar populations associated to DLAs have been represented by filled triangles. Sub-DLAs ($`10^{19}<N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})<2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{atoms}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) have been also included in this figure but they will be discussed in Section 7. As it can be seen from the distribution of the filled symbols, there is a clear correlation between the stellar mass associated with a given DLA and the filter characteristics of that DLA. There are very few DLAs with $`F<18.8`$, and all simulated DLAs with $`M_{\mathrm{stars}}>10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$ have $`F>21`$. Therefore, in our models, this observational filter directly translates into a stellar mass cut-off. As it has been shown, most LOSs map the external regions of DLA galaxies. However those with $`F>21`$, which are comparable to those missing from observations, have impact parameters $`b<5`$ kpc. Hence, LOSs with $`M_{\mathrm{stars}}>10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$ intercept the central regions. Although the percentage of such LOSs is low ($`7\%`$ of the total), it is enough to imprint global evolution with redshift in our simulations. It has been already mentioned that simulated DLAs with low impact parameters are more common at $`z<1`$ because of geometrical effects. These results suggest that some effort should be devoted to enlarge the sample of observed DLAs at low redshift since it could be profitable in order to test the existence of DLAs with high $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ and high metallicity. Yet, another possibility could be that the gas densities might have been lowered down by SN energy injection (not treated in this work), and consequently DLAs with these features are not present at all in nature as suggested by Ellison et al. (2001).

## 6 The $`\alpha `$-elements

The abundance ratios of the so-called $`\alpha `$-elements (i.e., Si, S, C, O) in DLAs have been subject of many studies (e.g., Lu et al. 1996; Pettini et al. 1997; Pettini et al. 2000) because they are thought to be good indicators of the SF history of DLA galaxies. This argument is based on the fact that the abundance patterns of the $`\alpha `$-elements in the Milky-Way show enhancement for metal poor stars (\[$`\alpha /`$Fe\]$`=+0.5`$ dex at \[Fe/H\]$`0.66`$) and then, a decline towards solar values for higher metallicities. This change of behaviour can be explained by taking into account the time-delayed contribution of SNIa to the chemical enrichment of the ISM. This type of SNe are the main producer of Fe which is ejected into the ISM after a time-delay equal to the life-time of the binary systems from which they arise (Thielemann et al. 1993). The timing of these chemical contributions are determined by the particular history of star formation of each galaxy.

It has been found that the presence of dust in DLAs affects the determinations of $`[\alpha /`$Fe\] ratios in a complicated way. Estimations of dust-corrected abundances yield nearly solar values (Vladilo 1998; Vladilo 2002). Recently, Ellison & López (2001) found a pair of DLAs selected via radio observations which show solar and sub-solar \[$`\alpha /`$Fe\] abundances. Sub-solar values would suggest that the $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds have been mainly chemically enriched by SNIa. Based on the discussion presented by Vladilo (1998) and Hou et al. (2001), among others, we focus on the comparison of our results with dust-corrected observations since metal depletion onto dust has not been considered in our simulations.

First observational results of $`[\alpha /`$Fe\] in DLAs shown some enhancements and a lack of trend with increasing redshift and metallicity (Pettini et al. 1997). However, recently, a behaviour consistent with a general trend for decreasing $`\alpha `$-enhancement with metallicity has been reported by Centurión et al. (2000), Molaro et al. (2001) and Vladilo (2002). In particular, Molaro et al. (2001) estimated a change of $`0.36`$ dex from a regression analysis of \[S,O/Zn\] providing the first results that give hints on metallicity evolution in the $`\alpha `$-elements. In a DLA sample with redshifts $`>1.5`$, Prochaska & Wolfe (2002) found that dust can affect strongly the measurements in those absorbers with \[Si/H\]$`>1.5`$. They found that DLAs at low metallicity, which can be considered dust-free, have significant $`\alpha `$-enrichment, as indicated by the \[Si/Fe\] values which exhibit a plateau of $`0.3`$ dex at \[Si/H\]$`<1.5`$ dex. The increase in \[Si/Fe\] at higher values of \[Si/H\] can be explained by dust depletion. Thus, when allowing for this effect, these authors found that the abundances of different systems are quite homogeneous.

In Fig.4(a) we show the distribution of \[Si/Fe\] versus \[Fe/H\] for the simulated DLAs, the dust-corrected data of Vladilo (2002). We can see that the abundance ratios for the simulated DLAs take values from solar up to \[Si/Fe\]$`0.30`$ dex, in very good agreement with the observed dust-corrected abundances. Note also that there are some simulated DLAs with low metallicities and (sub)solar \[Si/Fe\], indicating a main enrichment by SNIa. This behaviour is consistent with that reported by some observations (Ellison & López 2001) which show sub-solar $`\alpha `$ values for some low metallicity absorbers, and has arisen from the natural evolution of the GLOs which takes into account infall of material from the dark matter halo as well as inflows within a given GLO. In order to assess the presence of evolution of the $`\alpha `$-elements with metallicity, we performed a linear regression through the simulated DLA data finding $`0.15\pm 0.01`$ dex from \[Si/Fe\] values. These estimations have been performed with those simulated DLAs that satisfy the usual definition of $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})>2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{atom}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

In Fig.4(b), we have plotted the DLAs that are within the observational filter defined in the previous Section. Note how the filter tends to cast out the simulated DLA at the plateau of the relation, resulting in a better agreement with observations: $`d\mathrm{log}[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{Fe}]/\mathrm{d}[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=0.23\pm 0.01`$ dex. This effect is caused because the observation filter casts out the high metallicity and high column density $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds but by using the \[Zn/H\] abundance as an indicator of metallicity. This element is produced by SNII and has a different ejection timescale than Fe which is mainly produced by SNIa. This different timing between the two ejecta types can produce clouds with different relative enrichments (Tissera et al. 2002).

Finally, Fig.4(c) shows the unweighted mean $`[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{Fe}]`$ of the simulated DLAs at each analysed $`z`$ as a function of the metallicity given by the corresponding unweighted mean $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$, where the error bars represent the standard dispersions. As it can be appreciated from this figure, the dispersions for the $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$ at each redshift are very large and more important than those of the $`[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{Fe}]`$ (Prochaska & Wolfe 2002). Hence, while absorbers have more homogeneous $`[\alpha /\mathrm{Fe}]`$ abundances at a given redshift, they show very different Fe content. This is the result of their different histories of evolution and star formation which determined the timing between SNIa and SNII contributions to the ISM.

Another way of assessing the differential enrichment by SNII and SNIa is by analyzing the evolution of \[Si/Fe\] as a function of redshift (Fig.5). As it can be seen, the agreement with the dust-corrected data from Vladilo (2002) is very good, in the amount of enrichment, dispersion and trend. A linear regression through the simulated data yields $`d[\mathrm{Si}/\mathrm{Fe}]/dz=0.05\pm 0.01`$ dex ($`0.04\pm 0.01`$ dex for the filtered sample). The possitive correlation is due to the increase of Fe content as the stellar populations get older and start to produce SNIa.

Finally, in Fig.6 we plot the \[Si/Fe\] ratio as a function of the metallicity \[Fe/H\] for the ISM and SP of DLAs and Sub-DLAs; the discussion of the later ones is postponed till the next Section. Regarding the $`\alpha `$-enhancement of the SPs associated to DLAs (filled stars), we can see that their \[Si/Fe\] abundances are higher than the corresponding ISM and most of them formed in the higher $`\alpha `$-content levels, implying that the regions mapped by the random LOSs are those that have experienced a burst of SF after which the SF activity has proceeded in a more quiet way (see Tissera et al. (2002) for an analysis of the age of the stellar population in DLA systems). This fact is also the cause of having a SP less rich in Fe than their ISM along the LOSs, since as the gas is enriched by SNIa from the old SP, on average, no important star formation locks this material into stars. The $`\alpha `$-content of the SPs does not show any trend contrary to their ISMs as mapped by DLAs.

### 6.1 Brief discussion on the meaning of the statistical analysis

In this paper we have applied the two commoly used statistics to assess evolution in the metallicity content of $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds: differences of means at different redshifts and linear regressions. These two statistics have been applied to the simulated DLAs and the observational data presented by Vladilo (2002). A close inspection of these results presented in Tables 1, 2 and 3 reveals interesting features that we would like to discuss. We have chosen to show the bootstrap errors which give an indication of the statistical significance of the relations, but, the standard dispersions in simulated and observed DLAs are high (Table 1), making difficult to extract clear results.

Let us first look at the observations. This analysis is focused on the \[Fe/H\] ratio, since iron is much more affected by dust depletion than other chemical elements. The differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{obs}}_\mathrm{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]^{\mathrm{obs}}_\mathrm{w}`$ for the observed DLA sample without dust correction are pretty similar, showing negligible evolution both for unweighted and mass weighted means. When dust corrections are incorporated, the evolution shown by the unweighted means remains almost unchanged, while the difference between mass weighted means increases to $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{dust}}^{\mathrm{obs}}_\mathrm{w}=0.30\pm 0.35`$ dex. However, this value cannot be considered as indicative of the presence of some evolution because of its large error. This lack of evolution is consistent with the negligible signal found by Prochaska et al. (2002) when applying these two different statistics to a DLA sample that covers a redshift interval twice as large than the one considered in the present work.

However, when considering the slope obtained from the linear regression through the observations, we found a more statisical significant signal for intrinsic evolution, $`d\mathrm{log}[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]/dz=0.17\pm 0.11`$ dex, which increases to $`0.31\pm 0.14`$ dex, when dust corrections are applied. These values are pretty similar to those obtained by Vladilo (2002) from the analysis of these data on a larger redshift range. Hence, we obtained different results for the metal evolution in the observed sample, specially for the intrisic evolution, depending on which statitics is applied.

A similar behaviour is detected for the simulations, where more statistically significant signals are found when linear regressions are used. As it can be appreciated from Fig.1 and Fig.5, \[Zn/H\], \[Fe/H\] and \[Si/Fe\] ratios for both simulated and observed DLAs have increasing dispersions with redshift, leading to a picture that looks likely triangular. In the simulations, this shape is caused by the combination of enrichment of the ISM of the building blocks and the continuous gas infall which gives rise to metallicity gradients. These gradients caused the large abundance dispersions detected in the simulated DLAs, since random LOSs mapped different regions of the building blocks (see Section 8). The high metallicity and high column density simulated DLAs help to increase continuously the upper enveloped abundances of the triangle, this is why the filtered simulated sample shows less evolution when evaluated by differences of means. However, for the linear regressions the DLAs cast out by the filter are too few to actually change the general trend. Finally, the fact that the filtered sample reproduces the dust-corrected observed trends provides evidences for the upper limit of the observational filter not to be determined by dust absorptions.

## 7 The impact of sub-DLAs

Recent observational results of low density $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds along LOSs, the so-called sub-DLAs, obtained by Péroux et al. (2001, and references therein) show that clouds with $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ in the range $`10^{19}2\times 10^{20}\mathrm{atom}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ contribute with an important fraction of the neutral gas of the Universe, specially at $`z>3.5`$.

Sub-DLAs are associated with regions of lower stellar-mass content than DLAs, as it is shown in Fig.3. However, we find sub-DLAs to have a negligible contribution to the global metallicity evolution of the simulated box since in our models, such evolution is mainly driven by the high metallicity and high column density $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds. If sub-DLAs are incorporated to our calculations, we find that they affect the estimation of the intrinsic evolution making the signal even more stronger for both the gas and the stellar population. Hence, in the redshift range studied in this work, sub-DLAs seem to have no impact on the estimation of chemical evolution of the Universe but they should be taken into account to study the evolution of the chemical properties of the ISM and SP in DLA galaxies.

In fact, if sub-DLAs are included in the estimations of \[Si/Fe\] versus \[Fe/H\] the metallicity evolution signal is even clearer, and an abundance pattern similar to that observed in the Milky-Way is identified in the distribution as it can be seen in Fig.6. In the case of the filtered sub-DLA/DLA sample we found metallicity evolution of $`0.29\pm 0.03`$ dex (BE). The stellar populations associated to sub-DLAs tend to show mild $`\alpha `$-enhancement and the total filtered sample shows weak evolution with metallicity: $`0.07\pm 0.03`$ dex (BE).

The following step would be to disentangle if sub-DLAs are mainly associated with small objects or with the very outskirts of DLA galaxies. Firstly, we probed for a dependence of the $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ with the virial velocity of the associated DLA galaxies finding that DLAs and sub-DLAs are thrown out from a similar mixture of galactic halos with no dependence on virial velocity. Secondly, we looked at the relation between the impact parameter $`b`$ and $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ (Fig.7). A clear trend is found for the higher impact parameters to be mainly associated with sub-DLAs. Note that sub-DLAs also trace the intermediate regions ($`5\mathrm{kpc}<b<8\mathrm{kpc}`$). Although this correlation is already well-known, we have estimated it in order to show that these model and simulation are able to reproduce them.

According to these results, both DLAs and sub-DLAs could be tracing the ISMs of the same DLA galaxies with sub-DLAs providing more information on the outskirts of the galactic objects. However we note that, in our models, we may be overestimating the gas column densities and consequently, underestimating the impact parameters due to the well-known problem of excessive angular momentum transfer from baryons to the dark matter component. However, this effect works in the sense of erasing the low density region contributions by making the objects more concentrated with their gas density artificially higher in the centre. Hence, the fact that we get a signal of this kind suggests that this could be a real physical effect. In that case, sub-DLAs should be included in the analysis of the chemical evolution of the ISMs.

Finally, stars associated with sub-DLAs show $`\alpha `$-enhancement (Fig.6(b)), suggesting that the low-metallicity population in the galaxies such as the Milky-Way, could have been formed in the outer and intermediate regions of protogalactic objects. Note that our results do not imply any constrain on the mass of such protogalaxies, actually we find no dependence at all on the virial mass.

Ionized gas may be significant in systems with low $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ which can be much more affected by ionization radiation (Viegas 1995). Thus, the analysis of sub-DLAs should be taken only as indicative since, in our model, the chemical abundances were obtained by assuming all gas in neutral phase.

## 8 DLA Galaxies

In this Section we focus on the analysis of host galaxies of the simulated DLAs. All the galactic systems analysed have been resolved numerically with more than 2000 particles within their virial radius and with a spatial resolution of $`1.5`$ kpc. A detail description of these simulated galaxies has been presented in Section 3.1.

Recent observations have improved the statistics of DLA galaxies (Rao & Turnshek 2000; Nestor, Rao & Turnshek 2001), although it is still difficult to assert which sort of systems are responsible for the absorption features in the spectra of QSOs at different redshifts. There are now approximately 10 DLA galaxies observed at $`z<1.65`$ (Le Brun et al. 1997; Rao & Turnshek 2000). These observations show systems with different morphologies and luminosities including a significant number of dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies, albeit also spirals. Turnshek, Rao & Nestor (2001) compared properties of these DLA galaxies with those of local galaxies. We will use this observations to confront with the properties of the GLOs which host the simulated DLAs.

Our model allows to estimate the magnitudes of the GLOs in different wavelengths by using population synthesis model (Tissera et al. 1997) such as GISSEL 98 (kindly provided by G. Bruzual). For each SF episode we estimate the flux distribution according to its age and metallicity. Then, we sum up the contribution of all SPs belonging to a GLO at a certain redshift in order to estimate its total luminosity. In Fig.8, we plot the blue absolute magnitude of the GLOs at $`z1`$, distinguishing between those that are within (filled circles) and outside (open circles) the observational filter. Sub-DLAs have been included for completeness. ¿From this figure we observe that those GLOs which give origin to DLAs/sub-DLAs within the observational filter show a trend with magnitud similar to that found by Turnshek et al. (2001) for both DLAs and local galaxies, in the sense that the brighter the galaxies, the larger the impact parameter of the associated DLA. The inclusion of GLOs cast out by the observational filter tend to erase the correlation signal because the small $`b`$, which are mainly related to DLAs with high metallicity and high $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ column density, are associated to galaxies of any luminosity; while larger impact parameters are related to the brighter GLOs.

We also estimate the total blue luminosity of GLOs at different $`z`$. As it can be appreciated from Fig.9, most of the building blocks producing the absorptions have $`(L/L^{})_B<0.5`$ as shown by the median at each $`z`$ (filled circles), in agreement with observed DLA galaxies at $`z<1`$. The dispersion found in the simulated ratios agrees well with the observed fact that DLA galaxies cover a large range of luminosities. We also found a trend for DLA galaxies to increase their tipical luminosity with redshift. Note however that numerical resolution could affect this last result.

The information on the chemical properties of the ISMs and the SPs provided by the LOSs suggests that the simulated DLA galaxies at different redshifts have metallicity gradients. In order to assess how fairly random LOSs properly sample the chemical properties of the DLA galaxies, we estimate the abundances of the ISMs and SPs in each GLO in concentric shells as explained in Section 3.1. We calculate averages over the abundances within each shell in GLOs at each analysed $`z`$.

Fig.10 shows the mean values over GLOs as a function of $`z`$ for the concentric shells with inner radius varying from $`r=0`$ kpc to $`r=10`$ kpc and the outer one fixed at $`r=2R_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ (i.e., the estimations at $`r=0`$ implies that all the mass associated to the simulated galaxies has been taken into account). As it can be seen from this figure, the gas in the external regions is less metal enriched than the material in the central areas confirming the existence of metallicity gradients in the ISM of GLOs at all redshifts. Linear regressions through the simulated data yield evolution signal in the chemical content of the ISM of the whole GLOs (i.e., $`r>0`$ kpc) and of the ISM outside the very central regions (i.e., $`r>3`$ kpc) of $`0.32\pm 0.06`$ dex (BE) and $`0.23\pm 0.03`$ dex (BE) for \[Fe/H\] (similar trends have been found for \[Zn/H\]). This estimation agrees with that obtained from the linear regression of the simulated DLAs. For the ISM at $`r>6`$ kpc and $`r>10`$ kpc we get $`0.26\pm 0.20`$ dex (BE) and $`0.07\pm 0.26`$ dex (BE), implying that statistically, there is no evolution in the metal content of the intermediate and external regions of the galactic structure, in agreement with the filtered simulated DLAs. According to these results we predict that the observed global metallicity of the DLA galaxies might be underestimated, since random LOSs tend to map the external regions, and no global evolution would be detected unless central areas are taken into account.

A similar analysis has been carried out for the SPs within each shell finding that stars in the outer parts are less metal-rich than those in the inner regions (Fig.11). Note that stars with $`r<6`$ kpc are the ones pulling up the averages to nearly solar values. In this case, the gap between the metallicity of stars in the inner regions and that of the rest of the GLOs is larger than those of the ISM, where there is a continuous decrease of metallicity with radius. Stars in the outer regions also show higher $`\alpha `$-abundances as expected. We stress the fact that in the GLOs there are primordial stars with very low Fe content (\[Fe/H\] $`<3`$) and high $`\alpha `$-enhancements but when averages are estimated, higher metallicity SPs are more massive and dominate the estimations. Finally, note that the mean abundances of the SP of the whole systems (i.e., inner radius $`r=0`$) are higher than those corresponding to the ISM. This is reflecting the fact that in hierarchical clustering scenarios there is a continuous infall of pristine material from the galactic halo and that stars tend to form in the higher density regions where the metallicity is higher.

## 9 Conclusions

In this work we studied the possibility that the progenitors of current normal field galaxies are DLA galaxies, host of absorbing $`\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ clouds in the context of hierarchical clustering, where galaxies form from the merger of smaller substructures. DLAs observations provide information on the ISM of the host objects. In our models, we have the comprehensive information of the ISM and SP of the systems, allowing the performance of a consistent study in order to obtain robust conclusions on the possible nature of DLA galaxies.

We constructed mock catalogs of DLAs by drawing random LOSs through the galaxy-like objects at different $`z`$ in hierarchical clustering scenarios and compared the chemical properties of the simulated ISM when mapped by LOSs with observed DLAs. We then studied the properties of the simulated DLA galaxies and assessed at which extent random LOSs can properly extract information on both the chemical properties of the galaxies as a function of $`z`$ and the global evolution of the Universe.

¿From our simulations, we find

* the \[Fe/H\], \[Zn/H\] and \[Si/H\] ratios of the simulated DLAs to match the observational range determined by DLAs with similar dispersion. In the case of the $`\alpha `$-elements the simulated abundances are consistent with the dust-corrected data;
* intrinsic and global evolution for \[Fe/H\], \[Zn/H\] and \[Si/H\] with $`z`$. However, when the observational filter suggested by Prantzos & Boissier (2000) is applied, mild evolution consistent with observations is recovered;
* that the evolution with $`z`$ is mainly driven by the high metallicity and high column density DLAs albeit these DLAs represent a small percentage of the total number of LOSs ($`<10\%`$);
* $`\alpha `$-element filtered abundances to evolve with metallicity in agreement with recent observations (e.g., Molaro et al. 2001; Vladilo 2002);
* evidences that the observational filter may not be reflecting dust absoption but other effects such as geometrical ones;
* a trend for \[Si/Fe\] to correlate with redshift as it is expected by taking into account the different ejecta timing of SNII and SNIa;
* sub-DLAs might be providing information on the chemical properties of the external region of DLA galaxies, but they do not affect the determination of global evolution in the metal content of the simulated box, within $`0.26<z<2.34`$;
* that the building blocks in hierarchical clustering scenarios can reproduce the magnitude-impact parameter correlation of observed DLAs for $`z<1`$;
* no correlation between neither the impact parameters nor the $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ with virial velocity;
* that metal-poor stars could be forming in the outer regions of galaxies at any $`z`$ and the associated ISM might be tested by sub-DLA observations.

These findings imply that the building blocks of current normal galaxies in hierarchical clustering models could be host structures responsible of the DLA and sub-DLA systems and that DLA galaxies might represent a variety of galaxy morphologies with mean luminosities increasing with respect to $`L^{}`$ at $`z=0`$ with redshift. Despite geometrical effects, a small percentage of high metallicity and high column density $`N(\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{I})`$ should be identified, unless supernova energy feedback works to lower the central gas densities. Since the chances to intercept the central regions decrease with redshift, efforts should be put on detecting them at $`z<1`$. Metallicity gradients of the ISM of galaxies at different redshifts may be estimated, on average, by looking at the range of the metallicities set by DLAs and sub-DLAs. However current observations would be preferentially constraining the metallicity distribution for $`r>5`$ kpc.

The observed anti-correlation between impact parameter and magnitude might be the result of the particular history of formation of each galaxy which host a DLAs or sub-DLAs. However, the observational bias related to the lack of high column density and high metallicity column density works in the sense of supporting the anti-correlation by sweeping away the very low impact parameter contributors.

Stars in the simulated DLA galaxies (i.e., galaxy-like objects) are, on average, more metal-rich at the centre and metal-poor in the outskirts independently of $`z`$. Hence at $`z=0`$, a galaxy, which is the result of a merger sequence, can have old and young metal-rich (and metal-poor) stars. These findings have consequences for the understanding of the origin of the abundance pattern of the Milky-Way, since, according to our models, an important fraction of the low metallicity stars are situated in the outer ($`r>6`$ kpc) regions at any redshift; stars with nearly solar values are present at any redshift, but in the central regions. Hence, according to our results, the fact that observed DLAs yield low metallicity values does not imply that the associated DLA galaxies cannot have a metal rich population. The abundance characteristics of DLAs and Sub-DLAs are the results of SNIa and SNII contributions plus gas infall. The chemical characteristics of the SPs associated with simulated DLAs are consistent with having been formed in starbursts followed by quiescent periods of SF. The fact that we always identify low metallicity stars in the outskirts and no important evolution of the metallicity in these regions could be showing the action of continuous infall.

Future works will be focused on the improvement of the chemical code and the performance of simulations with higher numerical resolution.

We thank the anonymous referee for a carefull reading of the manuscript and useful suggestions that helped to improve our results. We thank the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics for the hospitality during PBT visit where this manuscript was finished. This work was partially supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Agencia de Promoción de Ciencia y Tecnología, Fundación Antorchas and Secretaria de Ciencia y Técnica de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Non-commutative field theory on the world-volume of a D-brane has been developed in a peculiar limit where a large constant background $`B`$-field is turned on . This is called the Seiberg–Witten limit and amounts to $`\alpha ^{}0`$ together with a scaling of the metric, $`g_{ij}\alpha ^2`$, while open-string parameters are kept fixed. Duality properties have been studied, and an explicit mapping between ordinary and non-commutative gauge fields exhibited . This inspiring correspondence has been successfully extended to the Ramond–Ramond couplings in the Seiberg–Witten limit, leading to an infinite set of derivative corrections , since the corrections are suppressed by powers of $`\alpha ^{}`$ in the non-commutative set-up. The series of corrections are expressed in terms of modified star-products named $`_p`$ (for integer $`p`$), that arise naturally from an integration prescription along an open Wilson line. This prescription originates from the requirement of gauge invariance of observables in non-commutative field theory . Computations at tree level in presence of a single Euclidean D9-brane in commutative string theory provided successful checks , confirming that these corrections are leading in the Seiberg–Witten limit. This suggested that the correspondence could be extended by string computations beyond this limit. Mukhi and Suryanarayana  derived the first correction in terms of the open-string metric to the coupling of quadratic order in the field strength, and generalized it to all orders (in the metric) by using a disk amplitude computed by Liu and Michelson . This led to a deformation of the $`_2`$-product by a differential operator $`t`$ constructed out of the open-string metric $`G`$:

$$C^{(6)}(k)𝑑xFF__2e^{ikx}C^{(6)}(k)𝑑xFF_{_2(t)}e^{ikx},$$

where the $`_2(t)`$ has the expected Seiberg–Witten limit

$$t:=\alpha ^{}G^{},a:=\frac{\theta ^{}}{2\pi },$$

$$_2(t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2t)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1a+t)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+a+t)},$$

$$_2(0)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}\pi a}{\pi a}=_2.$$

The deformed star-product $`_2(t)`$ received an interpretation in terms of a deformed smearing prescription along an open Wilson line, that parallels the one that had given rise to the $`_2`$-product, since

$$𝑑xFF_{_2(t)}e^{ikx}=𝑑x_0^1𝑑\tau F(x)(t)F(x+\theta k\tau )e^{ikx},$$

$$\mathrm{where}(t)=\times \frac{_2(t)}{_2}=\times \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2t)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1a+t)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+a+t)}.$$

In this letter we shall derive the contribution of the open-string metric to the amplitude

$$S_{CS}+\mathrm{\Delta }S_{CS}=C|\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{i}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}𝑑\sigma 𝑑\theta D\varphi ^\mu A_\mu (\varphi )\right)|B_R,$$

where $`\varphi ^\mu =X^\mu +\theta \psi ^\mu `$ denotes a superfield, and $`D`$ a derivative in superspace. This will enable us to derive the prescription of  and to extend it to larger orders in the field strength.

The recursive definition of the modified star-products allows to address the question of the correct definition of gauge tranformation laws beyond the large-$`B`$ limit. We shall work with a single Euclidean D9-brane in the description where the open-string metric $`G`$ is defined by

$$\left(\frac{1}{g+2\pi \alpha ^{}B}\right)^{ij}=\frac{\theta ^{ij}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}+G^{ij}.$$

We shall first work out the deformation of the star-products in presence of the symmetric part of the two-point functions of world-sheet scalars, and then interpret the results in terms of a deformed gauge-invariant smearing prescription in the non-commutative set-up.

## 2  Taking the open-string metric into account

### 2.1 Quadratic order in the field strength

As noticed in previous investigations of Ramond–Ramond couplings for small field strength, we are instructed to compute couplings whose order in the field strength is half of the degree as a differential form. Writing the result in terms of the differential form $`F`$, one has to make the substitution

$$\frac{1}{2}\psi _0^\mu \psi _0^\nu F_{\mu \nu }i\alpha ^{}F.$$

The only role played by the fermions in our computation will therefore be to provide us with the suitable number of zero modes, in order to build the grading of the coupling. As we are dealing with the Ramond–Ramond sector, we may forget the first part of the following expression, because it does not contibute to the grading.

$$𝑑\sigma 𝑑\theta D\varphi ^\mu A_\mu (\varphi )=𝑑\sigma 𝑑\theta \underset{k0}{}\frac{1}{(k+1)!}\frac{k+1}{k+2}D\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^\nu \stackrel{~}{\varphi }^\mu \stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{\mu _k}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _k}F_{\mu \nu }(x)$$

$$𝑑\sigma (\stackrel{~}{\psi }^\mu \psi _0^\nu +\psi _0^\mu \psi _0^\nu )\underset{k0}{}\frac{1}{k!}\stackrel{~}{X}^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{X}^{\mu _k}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _k}F_{\mu \nu }(x).$$

The computation is along the lines of the work by Wyllard  and amounts to contracting pairs of scalars using the open-string propagator

$$D^{a,b}(\sigma )=\alpha ^{}\left(\frac{\theta ^{a_ib_i}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1e^{ϵ+i\sigma }}{1e^{ϵi\sigma }}\right)+G^{a_ib_i}\mathrm{log}|1e^{ϵ+i\sigma }|^2\right).$$

Each of the propagators contributing to the regular part of the coupling comes with two derivatives acting on two different field strengths: $`D^{a,b}_a_b^{}|_{x^{}=x}`$. At order $`2n`$ in derivatives, the regular part of the coupling to $`C^{(6)}`$ reads

$$\frac{\alpha ^n}{n!}_0^{2\pi }\frac{d\sigma }{2\pi }\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left\{\frac{\theta ^{a_ib_i}_{a_i}_{b_i}^{}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1e^{ϵ+i\sigma }}{1e^{ϵi\sigma }}\right)+(G^{a_ib_i}_{a_i}_{b_i}^{})\mathrm{log}|1e^{ϵ+i\sigma }|^2\right\}F(x)F(x^{}).$$

Let us expand the product in the above expression in terms of the symmetric and antisymmetric parts of the propagator, and remove the regulator:

$$\underset{p=0}{\overset{n}{}}C_n^p\frac{1}{(2\pi \alpha ^{})^p}\theta ^{a_1b_1}\mathrm{}\theta ^{a_pb_p}i^p(\sigma \pi )^p\times G^{a_{p+1}b_{p+1}}\mathrm{}G^{a_nb_n}(\mathrm{log}|1e^{i\sigma }|^2)^{np}.$$

As we expand the gauge coupling to all orders in derivatives, we have to sum these contributions over $`n`$:

$$\underset{n0}{}\frac{\alpha ^n}{n!}_0^{2\pi }\left(\frac{d\sigma }{2\pi }\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}i(\sigma \pi )+G^{}\mathrm{log}|1e^{i\sigma }|^2\right)^n\right)$$

$$=_0^{2\pi }\frac{d\sigma }{2\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left(\alpha ^{}\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}i(\sigma \pi )+G^{}\mathrm{log}|1e^{i\sigma }|^2\right)\right).$$

The last integral expression therefore equals

$$_0^1𝑑\tau |2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau )|^{2t}\mathrm{exp}((ia\pi )(2\tau 1))=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2t)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1a+t)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+a+t)}.$$

This is a recipe for going beyond the Seiberg–Witten limit at quadratic order in the field strength. It confirms the prescription of , where the first order in $`G`$ thereof was computed, and where larger orders were included by requiring consistency with .

### 2.2 Higher orders in the field strength

The derivation  of the regular part of the couplings of larger orders in the field strength relies on symmetry factors and not on the precise form of the propagator. It may therefore be applied here using the full open-string propagator with derivatives included, together with the following notations:

$$Q_{ij}:=ia_{ij}(\sigma _{ij}ϵ(\sigma _{ij}))+t_{ij}\mathrm{log}\left|2\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\sigma _{ij}}{2}\right)\right|^2,$$

$$\sigma _{ij}:=\sigma _i\sigma _j,a_{ij}:=\frac{_{i,\mu }\theta ^{\mu \nu }_{j,\nu }}{2\pi },t_{ij}:=\alpha ^{}_{i,\mu }G^{\mu \nu }_{j,\nu }.$$

The coupling to a mode of $`C^{(102p)}`$ is going to be expressed as the image of $`F^p`$ by some differential operator $`\stackrel{~}{}_p`$, so that $`\stackrel{~}{}_2`$ is the $`_2(t)`$ of . Furthermore, if all the metric-dependent coefficients $`t_{ij}`$ are set to 0, the kernel $`\stackrel{~}{}_p`$ will reduce to the modified star-product $`_p`$. The only change with respect to the derivation in the Seiberg–Witten limit comes from the symmetric part of the propagator, which is going to insert a factor of $`\left|2\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\sigma _{ij}}{2}\right)\right|^{2t_{ij}}`$ in the integral for each pair of labels $`\{i,j\}`$ (with $`ij`$, since extracting the regular part of the coupling prohibits self-contractions).

At cubic order in the field strength one can write explicitly:

$`\stackrel{~}{}_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{A,B,C0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{A!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{B!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C!}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _2}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _3}{2\pi }}Q_{12}^AQ_{23}^BQ_{31}^C`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}d\tau _1{\displaystyle _0^1}d\tau _2{\displaystyle _0^1}d\tau _3\mathrm{exp}\{ia_{12}\pi (2\tau _{12}ϵ(\tau _{12}))+2t_{12}\mathrm{log}|2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{12})|`$
$`+ia_{23}\pi (2\tau _{23}ϵ(\tau _{23}))+2t_{23}\mathrm{log}|2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{23})|`$
$`+ia_{31}\pi (2\tau _{31}ϵ(\tau _{31}))+2t_{31}\mathrm{log}|2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{31})\}.`$
As the symmetry factors have been shown to keep the same structure for an arbitrary number of operators, the desired operator is seen to be the following for any integer $`p`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{}_p=_0^1𝑑\tau _1\mathrm{}_0^1𝑑\tau _p\mathrm{exp}\left\{\underset{i<j}{}\left(i\pi a_{ij}\left(2\tau _{ij}ϵ(\tau _{ij})\right)+2t_{ij}\mathrm{log}|2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{ij})|\right)\right\}.$$

Since we have disregarded from the very beginning the contact terms that can arise from insertion of operators at the same point, we missed the explicit counterpart of commutators that show up in the corresponding computations in the non-commutative description  (what we derived is just the deformation of the differential operator $`_p`$). These contact terms are naturally related to point-splitting regularization and therefore to non-commutative gauge theory. However, the existence of well-established Ramond–Ramond couplings in the Seiberg–Witten limit will allow us to complete the field strength into the one of non-commutative Yang–Mills by an educated guess, and to investigate compatibility with the kernels computed above. On the other hand, the lack of explicit commutative treatment of these terms will restrict the range of our discussion of scalar couplings to deformations of the Seiberg–Witten map for transverse scalars.

## 3 Effect on the non-commutative action

### 3.1 How to modify the smearing prescription

It is possible to adapt the above derivation to the non-commutative set-up, by inserting a factor of $`2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{ab})^{2t_{ab}}`$ at each of the points at which the operators are inserted along the Wilson line, since the full operator entering the coupling of degree $`2p`$ reads

$$\stackrel{~}{}_p=_0^1𝑑\tau _1\mathrm{}_0^1𝑑\tau _p\underset{1i<jp}{}\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\pi a_{ij}(2\tau _{ij}ϵ(\tau _{ij}))\right\}(2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \tau _{ij}))^{2t_{ij}}.$$

In order to see wether the couplings can be rewritten in terms of a smearing prescription, ordered with respect to a deformed star-product along a Wilson line, we are urged to find a recursive definition of the deformed star-products. It should be compatible the one derived by Liu  between the modified star-products in the Seiberg–Witten limit:

$$i\theta ^{ij}_if_1,\mathrm{},f_p,_jf_{p+1}_{_{p+1}}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{p}{}}f_1,\mathrm{},[f_i,f_{p+1}],\mathrm{},f_p__p.$$

where the commutator is understood with respect to the star-product. As noted in , the commutator can still be expressed in terms of $`_2`$ after deformation:

$$i\theta ^{ij}_if,_jg_{_2(t)}=[f,g]_{(t)},$$

where $`(t)`$ is the deformed version of the star-product defined by the prescription of integration along an open Wilson line for two observables. Therefore we are inclined to look for a deformed version of the recursive formula using derivatives for some of the arguments. Let us onsider the following expression

$$i\theta ^{ij}_if_1,\mathrm{},f_p,_jf_{p+1}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+1}},$$

and show how the recursion is organized for one of the terms in the above derivative. It is of the general form of multiple convolutions (denoted by $``$) between operators $`O_i`$ smeared along a line, where the kernel $`K`$ is translation invariant.

$`i\theta ^{ij}_iO_1_jO_2\mathrm{}O_{p+1}`$
$`=`$ $`i\theta ^{ij}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\tau _1\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\tau _p_iO_1(0)K(\tau _1)_jO_2(\tau _1)K(\tau _2)O_3(\tau _1+\tau _2)K(\tau _3)O_4(\tau _1+\tau _2+\tau _3)\mathrm{}`$
$`\mathrm{}K(\tau _{p1})O_p(\tau _1+\mathrm{}+\tau _{p1})K(\tau _p)O_{p+1}(\tau _1+\mathrm{}+\tau _p)\delta (\tau _1+\mathrm{}+\tau _p1)`$
$`=`$ $`\left(i\theta ^{ij}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau _1_iO_1(0)K(\tau _1)_jO_2(\tau _1)}\right)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^1}d\tau _2\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^1}d\tau _pK(\tau _2)O_3(1\tau _3\mathrm{}\tau _p)K(\tau _3)\mathrm{}O_p(1\tau _p)K(\tau _p)O_{p+1}(1)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\tau _2\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\tau _p[O_1,O_2]_{(t_{12})}(0)K(\tau _2)O_3(\tau _2)K(\tau _3)O_4(\tau _2+\tau _3)\mathrm{}`$
$`\mathrm{}O_p(\tau _2+\mathrm{}+\tau _{p1})K(\tau _p)O_{p+1}(\tau _2+\mathrm{}+\tau _p)\delta (\tau _2+\mathrm{}+\tau _p1)`$
$`=`$ $`[O_1,O_2]_{(t_{12})}O_3\mathrm{}O_pO_{p+1}.`$
This allows us to open up one more integration interval over an intermediate time and to write the recursive definition of the deformed smearing prescription

$$i\theta ^{ij}_if_1,\mathrm{},f_p,_jf_{p+1}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+1}}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{p}{}}f_1,\mathrm{},[f_i,f_{p+1}]_{(t_{i,p+1})},\mathrm{},f_p_{\stackrel{~}{}_p}.$$

Let us write the third rank differential operator explicitly:

$$\stackrel{~}{}_3=\frac{a_{32}}{a_{31}+a_{32}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+2t_{32}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1a_{32}+t_{32}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+a_{32}+t_{32}\right)}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+2t_{12}+2t_{13}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1a_{12}a_{13}+t_{12}+t_{13}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+a_{12}+a_{13}+t_{12}+t_{13}\right)}$$

$$+\frac{a_{31}}{a_{31}+a_{32}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+2t_{31}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1a_{31}+t_{31}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+a_{31}+t_{31}\right)}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+2t_{32}+2t_{12}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1a_{32}a_{12}+t_{32}+t_{12}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+a_{32}+a_{12}+t_{32}+t_{12}\right)},$$

whose Seiberg–Witten limit is recognized as $`_3`$:

$$_3=\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\pi a_{32}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\pi (a_{12}+a_{13})\right)}{\pi (a_{31}+a_{32})\pi (a_{12}+a_{13})}+\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\pi a_{31}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\pi (a_{32}+a_{12})\right)}{\pi (a_{31}+a_{32})\pi (a_{32}+a_{12})}=\underset{\alpha ^{}0}{lim}\stackrel{~}{}_3.$$

### 3.2 Deformed non-commutative gauge transformations

The previous investigation of deformed star-products at larger degree allows to derive the deformation of non-commutative field strength and gauge transformation required to ensure gauge invariance of the deformed smeared expression. These are as announced in :

$$\widehat{F}_{ij}=_i\widehat{A}_j_j\widehat{A}_ii[\widehat{A}_i,\widehat{A}_j]_{(t)},$$

$$\delta \widehat{A}_i=_i\widehat{\lambda }i[\widehat{A}_i,\widehat{\lambda }]_{(t)}.$$

The recursive formula was the custodian of gauge invariance in the Seiberg–Witten limit. Extending our prescriptions to larger orders in the gauge potentials by expanding the deformed Wilson line, we see that the deformed smeared prescription plays exactly the same role. The Ramond–Ramond couplings $`Q(k)`$ are given, for some mode $`k`$, by a smeared integral along a straight open Wilson line $`W_k`$ (of extension $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }k_\nu `$), of operators $`O_i`$ of the form $`(\theta \theta \widehat{F}\theta )^{\mu \nu }`$, transforming as

$$O_ii[O_i,\widehat{\lambda }]_\stackrel{~}{},$$

so that the gauge invariance of the couplings can be checked on an expansion in terms of the gauge potential, using the recursive definition of the deformed star-products:

$$Q(k)=\underset{m0}{}Q_m(k),$$

$$Q_m=\frac{1}{m!}(\theta )^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}(\theta )^{\mu _m}O_1,\mathrm{},O_p,\widehat{A}_{\mu _1},\mathrm{},\widehat{A}_{\mu _m}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+m}}.$$

The gauge variation of one of the terms in the above expansion reads

$`\delta Q_m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{m!}}(\theta )^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}(\theta )^{\mu _m}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{p}{}}}O_1,\mathrm{},[\widehat{\lambda },O_i]_\stackrel{~}{},\mathrm{},O_p,\widehat{A}_{\mu _1},\mathrm{},\widehat{A}_{\mu _m}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+m}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{m!}}(\theta )^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}(\theta )^{\mu _m}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}}O_1,\mathrm{},O_p,\widehat{A}_{\mu _1},\mathrm{},[\widehat{\lambda },\widehat{A}_{\mu _i}]_\stackrel{~}{},\mathrm{},\widehat{A}_{\mu _m}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+m}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(m1)!}}(\theta )^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}(\theta )^{\mu _m}O_1,\mathrm{},O_p,\widehat{A}_{\mu _1},\mathrm{},\widehat{A}_{\mu _{m1}},_{\mu _m}\widehat{\lambda }_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+m}},`$
so that the gauge variation of the field strengths in $`Q_m`$ is compensated by the gauge variation of the gauge potentials in $`Q_{m+1}`$. The quantity $`Q(k)`$ is therefore gauge invariant, and the deformed smearing prescription is consistent in the non-commutative set-up, provided the commutators of non-commutative Yang–Mills theory are also deformed. Furthermore, we may infer deformations of the Seiberg–Witten map for the transverse scalars, by considering a lower-dimensional brane and identifying the coefficients of the transverse momentum of the Wilson line in both descriptions. This results in the substitution of deformed star-products to the usual ones in the corresponding result of Mukhi and Suryanarayana .

The family of differential operators (and the deformed gauge theory) we have just worked out induce deformations of the expressions of the form

$$𝑑xL_{}\left(\sqrt{det(1\theta \widehat{F})}\left(\widehat{F}\frac{1}{1\theta \widehat{F}}\right)^pW_k(x)\right)e^{ikx},$$

by replacing star-products of various ranks (and field strengths) with their deformations. A few more terms in the commutative set-up can back this proposal. During the computation on a commutative space, we ignored terms that involved other tensor structures than derivatives of $`FF`$. But an important class of such terms are predicted by the modified smearing prescription, since the Wilson line not only gives rise to an ordering of the observables, but can be expanded, generating forms of degree four and of cubic order in the gauge field, even once expressed back in the commmutative language. The Seiberg–Witten limit of these forms has been worked out in . Terms from the expansion of the open Wilson lines that are cubic in the field srength arise through the four-form

$$\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{\mu \nu }_\nu \widehat{A}_\mu ,\widehat{F}_{\alpha \beta },\widehat{F}_{\gamma \delta }_{\stackrel{~}{}_3}.$$

The commutative counterpart  (at low order in derivatives) of these terms with all the form indices carried by two field strengths is in the four-derivative four-form term

$$\theta ^{\mu \nu }\theta ^{\rho \kappa }\theta ^{\sigma \tau }F_{\rho \mu }_\sigma _\nu F_{\alpha \beta }_\kappa _\tau F_{\gamma \delta },$$

and modifications thereof beyond the Seiberg–Witten limit. The relevant modifications are quadratic in the metric, since the two-forms commute with each other, forcing the two differential operators acting on them to have the same symmetry. The relevant tensor structure is therefore as follows:

$$\theta ^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \rho }G^{\rho \kappa }G^{\sigma \tau }_\nu _\sigma F_{\alpha \beta }_\kappa _\tau F_{\gamma \delta }.$$

Now, to be consistent on the non-commutative side, we must take into account the contribution from the factor $`\sqrt{det(1\theta \widehat{F})}`$ to the four-form coupling with the relevant index structure

$$\frac{1}{4}\theta ^{\mu \nu }\widehat{F}_{\nu \mu },\widehat{F}_{\alpha \beta },\widehat{F}_{\gamma \delta }_{\stackrel{~}{}_3},$$

and the cubic part of the Seiberg–Witten image of $`\widehat{F}_{\alpha \beta },\widehat{F}_{\gamma \delta }_{\stackrel{~}{}_2}`$, which read

$$\theta ^{\mu \nu }\left(\widehat{A}_\mu ,_\nu \widehat{F}_{\alpha \beta }_{\stackrel{~}{}_2}\widehat{F}_{\alpha \mu },\widehat{F}_{\beta \nu }_{\stackrel{~}{}_2}\right),\widehat{F}_{\gamma \delta }_{\stackrel{~}{}_2}.$$

We may note that this expression includes deformations due the ones of gauge transformations, while the new terms from the open Wilson line are direct consequences of the deformation of the star-products. The two levels of our previous discussion are therefore tied together. Let us trace the modifications of the commutative terms to the deformations of the open Wilson line. They can only come from the terms in the open Wilson line where the overall derivative acts on one of the field strengths. The first contribution of the differential operator $`t`$ is quadratic, as could be awaited:

$$\stackrel{~}{}_2_2=\frac{\pi ^2}{3}t^2+o(t^2).$$

$$\stackrel{~}{}_3_3=\frac{\pi ^2}{6}(t_{13}^2+(t_{12}+t_{23})^2)+o(t^2).$$

In order to make a field strength out of the gauge field $`\widehat{A}_i`$, one has to use derivatives under the disguise of $`t^2`$. This produces terms where each of the two-forms bears a pair of derivatives, and where one of these pairs contains two derivatives contracted with inverse open-string metrics:

$$\theta ^{\mu \nu }_\kappa \widehat{A}_\mu G^{\tau \sigma }_\tau _\nu \widehat{F}_{\alpha \beta }G^{\kappa \rho }_\rho _\sigma \widehat{F}_{\gamma \delta }.$$

The gauge-invariant completion comes from the expansion of the external $`\stackrel{~}{}_2`$ in the Seiberg–Witten map. The index structure of the commutative candidate is recognized after rearranging, and the removal of hats is consistent with our cubic prescription.

## 4 Conclusion

In order to obtain results beyond the Seiberg–Witten limit, the full open-string propagator has been taken into account in the computation of the Ramond–Ramond couplings for small $`U(1)`$ field strength at all orders in derivatives. The resulting differential operators acting on powers of the field strength are deformations of the modified star-products previously derived in the Seiberg–Witten limit. The expression of $`\stackrel{~}{}_2`$ is consistent with known string amplitudes. Moreover, the recursive definition of the modified star-products enables us to express any of them as rational functions of differential operators containing open-string parameters, and Gamma functions thereof. The results can be reformulated in the non-commutative set-up in terms of a deformed smearing prescription along an open Wilson line. This confirms earlier proposals at all orders in the open-string metric at disk level, and extends them to couplings of higher degrees. Furthermore, the deformation of the commutators induced in non-commutative Yang–Mills theory by $`\stackrel{~}{}_2`$ has been shown to lead to gauge-invariant couplings.

Acknowledgements

I have benefited from conversations with R. Minasian, D. Orlando and P. Vanhove, and from correspondence with S. Mukhi. It is a pleasure to thank the organizers of the Les Houches Winter School Frontiers in Number Theory, Physics, and Geometry (HPCF 2002-00334), during which part of this work was done.


text:
# BeppoSAX average spectra of Seyfert galaxies

## 1 Introduction

The discovery of broad emission lines in the polarized spectrum of a number of Seyfert (Sey) 2 galaxies has provided the basis for a unified model of Sey galaxies in which the main discriminating parameter is the inclination of our line of sight with respect to an obscuring torus surrounding the source. In the simple version of this model, one then expects the direct continuum of type 1 and 2 objects to be identical except for the effects of obscuration by the torus material. The X-ray spectra of type 1 objects are relatively well known and consist of a power law of index $``$2, a cut-off at around 200 keV plus a Compton reflection component with R (the solid angle in units of 2$`\pi `$, subtended by the reflecting material) $``$ 0.6-1 and a Fe K$`\alpha `$ feature (Perola et al. 2002, Matt 2001, Pounds and Reeves 2002). Conversely, the X-ray spectra of type 2 are much less well defined due to the extra complexity of absorption: constraints on individual spectra are rather poor due to the limited photon statistics and provide a greater variety of spectral components (Matt et al. 2000, Malaguti et al. 1999, Turner et al. 2000). One way to better constrain the X-ray spectral properties is to consider average spectra. When this is done, the spectra of type 2 objects are found to be substantially harder than that of type 1, which implies a lower energy cut-off (Zdziarski et al. 1995, 2000). However, this intrinsic difference in the spectrum of Sey 1 and 2’s cannot be explained by the simplest version of the unified AGN model, providing its strongest challenge yet. Here, we study the average spectra of Sey 1 and 2 observed by BeppoSAX over the energy band 3-200 keV, i.e. the first simultaneous broad band spectra with coverage above 10 keV. The purpose of this work is to impose the tightest possible constraints on both spectral shapes in order to check if their intrinsic continuum is indeed different and to discuss our findings in the framework of the unified theory.

## 2 The average spectra

The sample used for this work consists of 9 Sey 1 (Fairall9, 3C120, NGC3783, NGC4593, MCG-6-30-15, NGC5548, MKN509, ESO141-G55, NGC7469) and 13 Sey 2 (NGC526A, NGC2992, NGC5506, ESO103-G35, NGC7172, NGC7314, NGC7582, MCG-5-23-16, NGC1365, NGC2110, NGC4258, NGC5252, NGC5674) galaxies. The strongest BeppoSAX detections of Sey (such as NGC4151 and IC4329A) were excluded so that single sources would not significantly bias our results. We also excluded from our Sey 2 samples sources with column density in excess of 1023 atoms cm-2 in order to maintain a certain homogeneity in the absorption properties. The count spectra of the individual observations were added with weights corresponding to the length of time of each observation and the sum was simply normalized by the total number of sources in each subset. Only MECS (3-10 keV) and PDS data (15-200 keV) were considered in order to avoid the complexity due to the soft excess particularly in Sey 2. Standard data reduction was performed using the software package ”SAXDAS” (see http://www.sdc.asi.it/software and the Cookbook for BeppoSAX NFI spectral analysis, Fiore, Guainazzi & Grandi 1998). Data were linearized and cleaned for Earth occultation periods and periods of high particle background (satellite passages through the South Atlantic Anomaly). Data have been accumulated for Earth elevation angles $`>5`$ degrees and magnetic cut-off rigidity $`>6`$. For the PDS data we adopted a fine energy and temperature dependent Rise Time selection, which decreases the PDS background by $`40\%`$. This improves the signal to noise ratio of faint sources by about 1.5 (Frontera et al. 1997, Fiore, Guainazzi & Grandi 1998). Data from the four PDS units and the two MECS units were merged after equalization and single MECS and PDS spectra were then accumulated. The normalization constant, introduced to allow for a well known difference in the absolute cross-calibration between the two detectors, was left free to vary between 0.7 -0.95 (Fiore, Guainazzi and Grandi, 1998). All quoted errors refer to 90% confidence level for 1 interesting parameter ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$=2.7). First we fitted the 3-200 keV spectra with an absorbed power law plus a gaussian line (model 1 in table 1). As expected, this simple model provides an unsatisfactory fit to the data mainly due to the presence of a strong reflection component and the possible presence of a high energy cut-off. The iron line energy is compatible with reflection in cold material and the equivalent width (EW) is $``$ 100-200 eV. In both classes of objects the line width is slightly broad but this is likely due to a redshift effect as sources with different z are summed together: in particular 5 Seyfert 1s and 3 Seyfert 2s galaxies have redshift greater than 0.01 which is enough to produce a broadening of the line; an important contribution to the line width could also be given by Fairall 9 (z=0.047) to the Sey 1 average spectrum and by NGC5506 (z=0.062) to the Seyfert 2s average spectrum. A detailed analysis of the iron line is however beyond the scope of the present paper and it is therefore postponed to a later work.
Although the absorbed power law model points to an overall shape similar for both types of galaxies, the best fit photon index for Sey 1 and 2 turns out to be significantly different: the Sey 1s retain the canonical $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of $``$1.9 while the Sey 2s are flatter with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 1.75. As expected Sey 2 galaxies are more absorbed than Sey 1 with an average column density of $``$ 4 $`\times `$ 1022 atoms cm-2, however some amount of absorption is also present in Sey 1 galaxies with NH $``$ 1022 atoms cm-2. A recent analysis of a sample of Sey 1 with BeppoSAX indicates that cold absorption of this amount is generally not present in this type of object (NH $``$ 1021 atoms cm-2); however a warm absorber seems to be a common feature of type 1 objects and is consistent with the presence of some absorption in our average spectrum (Perola et al. 2002). Next we introduced a Compton reflection component and a high energy cut-off via the pexrav model in XSPEC: this model provides an improvement in the fit which is significant at the 99.99% confidence level for 2 extra degrees of freedom for both classes (table 1 model 2). The inclination assumed for the Seyfert 1s is cos i=0.45 in model 2a and 0.87 in model 2b; on the other hand since the Sey 2s are most likely to be seen edge-on, we assumed in this case cos i=0.45 only. Furthermore, we assume the reflection medium to be close to neutral and the abundances used are those of Anders and Ebihara (1982). It is evident from table 1 that while the amount of reflection is consistent between the two types, the primary continuum is still significantly different: the average Sey2 spectrum is substantially harder than that of Sey 1 and the cut-off is at lower energies (see table 1). On the other hand, the average spectrum of Sey 1s is perfectly canonical having $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=1.9, a reflection strength R $``$ 0.6 (or 1 depending on the inclination angle assumed) and a cut-off energy at around 200 keV; the iron line is confirmed at 6.4 keV and the equivalent width is 100-120 keV. Our results confirm the findings of Perola et al. (2002) on a sample of Seyfert 1 galaxies observed by BeppoSAX and analyzed individually with the same model. When their data are combined to get weighted mean values ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=1.84$`\pm `$0.02, R=0.64$`\pm `$0.09 for cos$`\mathrm{\Theta }`$=0.9 and Ecut 130$`\pm `$20 keV), these are very similar to our best fit parameters of model 2b in table 1; their average line energy is at 6.44$`\pm `$0.04 keV while the equivalent width is 122$`\pm `$16 again in agreement with our results. Also, if the iron line comes from the same medium as the Compton reflecting continuum, one would expect a simple relationship between R, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and EW, which for the average photon index of the Sey 1 and the reflection value obtained for cos$`\mathrm{\Theta }`$=0.87 provides an EW value very similar to that observed (see George and Fabian 1991 results rescaled to the Anders and Grevesse (1993) abundances): therefore the observed EW is of the magnitude expected from the simultaneously measured strength of the reflection component. The difference seen between Sey 1 and 2 is however troublesome as it is not easily reconciled with the unified theory, which is however independently supported by other observational evidences.
It is well known that there is an inter-dependence of the parameters in the pexrav model, whereby increasing the reflection and/or the high energy cut-off leads to a steeper power law. To test this possibility, we have imposed a photon index of 1.9 (equal to that obtained for the Sey 1 in the cos i=0.45 configuration) on the Sey 2 and measured the contours of reflection strength against cut-off energy for this case: figure 1 shows the results compared to the Sey 1 case while model 2a,c in table 1 provides the best fit parameters. The cut-off energy turns out to be similar to that measured in type 1 objects but R is now much higher ($``$3). A Compton reflection component as strong as this is unusual for Compton thin Sey 2 galaxies (Bassani et al. 1999) which characterize our sample. Also, following the same reasoning as for type 1 objects, the measured iron line EW is too low for the observed reflection strength especially if a contribution of the order of 30-40 eV has to be taken into account for the line component originating by transmission through a torus of column density of $``$ 4 $`\times `$ 1022 cm-2. A reflection component as strong as that measured is, however, still possible if the hard X-ray emission is isotropic and/or there is a time lag in the response of the reflection flux to variations of the source intensity (Cappi et al. 1996, Weaver et al. 1996).
A model independent way to verify the presence of a stronger reflection in type 2 with respect to type 1 objects is to measure the Sey 2 to Sey 1 PDS ratio and search for the presence of a bump in the PDS data. The Sey2 to Sey1 ratio is shown in figure 2, which clearly excludes the presence of stronger reflection in type 2 objects. Indeed the average spectra of Sey 1s and Sey 2s appear to be very similar in the high energy (PDS) band, but they are different in the MECS range where effect of absorption takes place.
The ratio shown in figure 2 was produced by first summing the background-subtracted data for the two types of sources individually, normalizing each for the number of sources in each sample and then dividing in order to obtain the ratio. The data were then rebinned in order to have a minimum (3 sigma) detection in each energy bin throughout the ratio. A visual inspection of the distribution of spectra for each sample (figures 3) confirms that neither the Sey 1 or Sey 2 groups are dominated by one source. The origin of the negative counts which can be seen in the individual spectra is due to the fact that we are working in a high energy regime where we are background dominated and statistical variations in background can be higher than the source flux itself. This is confirmed by the observation that the maximum negative flux corresponds to a significance of only 1.5$`\sigma `$, thus ruling out the possibility that systematics in the background subtraction are responsible. The Sey 1 sample is much more homogeneous than the Sey 2 group, which would be expected due to the wider range of geometric orientations possible for the latter type. It can be seen that there is no discernible excess in the 20-100 keV band, thus excluding the presence of stronger reflection in Sey 2’s than in Sey 1’s; if we restrict the analysis to the 40-70 keV band where excess counts are visible by eye, the significance is still too low (2.3$`\sigma `$) to claim the presence of an excess.
Having excluded reflection as the possible cause of a flatter spectrum, the only other remaining way to steepen the Sey 2 spectrum is via a more complex absorption than assumed. This is not an unreasonable assumption since within our sample there are objects with different column densities and summing their spectra together can artificially produce a complex absorption where the covering fraction depends on the distribution of fluxes. We have therefore introduced in the Sey 2 fit an extra absorber that partially covers the source (model 3a in Table 1). The fit improves significantly at more than 99% confidence level for two extra degrees of freedom and provides average spectral parameters for the intrinsic continuum very similar to those measured in Sey 1s: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 1.9, R $``$0.7-1.2 and E$`{}_{c}{}^{}`$ 200 keV. The two best fits give rise to two different MECS/PDS normalization factors ($``$0.75 and $``$0.83) both of which are within the range indicated in the Cookbook of BeppoSAX NFI spectral analysis (Fiore et al. 1998). However, in order to further check the robustness of these results, we have tried to re-analyse the Sey 2 data using the normalization found for the Sey 1’s and vice versa. In both cases the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, R and cut-off are consistent with those found in the original analysis within 2$`\sigma `$. The composite spectra of both types of Seyferts are compared in figure 4; again from this figure is evident that the two spectra are very similar in the PDS energy range, while differing considerable at lower energies.

## 3 Conclusions

We have measured with BeppoSAX the average spectra of Sey 1 galaxies confirming previous indications that typically these galaxies have a power law shape with photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 1.9, a reflection component of strength R$``$0.6-1 and a high energy cut-off which is now more clearly defined and located at around 200 keV. Sey 2s on the other hand, have an average spectrum which is substantially harder and with a lower energy cut-off than Sey 1s. Our analysis excludes the possibility that stronger reflection in Sey 2s is responsible for their harder spectrum; instead the introduction of a complex absorber provides an average Sey 2’s spectrum very similar to that of Sey 1’s. This complex absorption is not necessarily intrinsic to individual sources but is likely to be an artifact of summing spectra with different amounts of absorption. However since complex absorption has been observed in some individual source spectra (e.g. Malaguti et al. 1999, Turner et al. 2000) we cannot exclude a-priori its possible contribution to the average Seyfert 2’s spectrum. In any case our result on the primary power law continuum argues strongly for a very similar production mechanism not only in both types of Seyferts but in each individual object and is therefore also relevant for the synthesis of the X-ray background: Sey 2 spectra can now be taken to be similar to their type 1 counterparts in the AGN contribution estimates.

We are grateful to M. Cappi for useful discussions. A.M. acknowledge financial support from ASI.