... evolution

Based on observations made with the ESO 8.2 m Kueyen telescope operated on Paranal Observatory, (Chile). ESO programmes 65.O-0299, 66.A-0594(A), and 69.A-0299.

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... systems

We follow the usual definition ${[X/Y]} \equiv \log \left\{ N\left({X}^i\right)/N\left({Y}^j\right) \right\} - \log ({X/Y})_{\rm sun}$, where i and j indicate the dominant ionization state in H I regions for the elements X and Y, respectively. In this paper we adopt the meteoritic solar abundances of Grevesse & Sauval (1998), with the exception of O and Ar, taken from Holweger (2001) and SJ98, respectively.

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...2002)

This is true even if the nucleosynthesis of Zn is not wellunderstood (see Prochaska & Wolfe 2002).

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... conditions

The individual DLAs in the figures can be recognized by means of their H I column density, given in Table 1.

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... continuum

Strictly speaking, the latter indication must be taken with caution at high column densities since we are not able to compute the ionization balance for model H1 when $\log N(\mbox{H {\sc i}}) \ga21$ (see Sect. 3.2.2).

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