| Issue |
A&A
Volume 368, Number 3, March IV 2001
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | L21 - L24 | |
| Section | Letters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20010183 | |
| Published online | 15 March 2001 | |
A new deuterium abundance measurement from a damped Lyα system at 
*
1
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschildstr. 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
2
Observatoire de Genève, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
3
Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy
Corresponding author: S. D'Odorico, sdodoric@eso.org
Received:
20
November
2000
Accepted:
1
February
2001
We present the first D/H measurement in a damped Lyα (hereafter DLA) system at 
towards QSO 0347-3819 obtained from the UVES-VLT spectra. The DLA absorber has a
metallicity of [Zn/H] 
and a relatively simple velocity structure, with two
dominating components detected in several metal lines. The hydrogen Lyman series can be followed
down to Ly12 thanks to the high UV-Blue efficiency of UVES. The best fit of the Lyman series lines,
and in particular of Lyϵ, Ly8, Ly10 and Ly12, relatively free of local contamination, is
obtained when the DI absorption is included in the two main components. The measured
deuterium column density yields 
close to other
low D/H values from Lyman limit systems. The corresponding values for the baryon to photon ratio
and the baryon density derived from D/H are 
and
respectively.
Key words: cosmology: observations / quasars: QSO 0347 / 3819 / nuclear reactions, nucleosynthesis, abundances
© ESO, 2001
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