LY-$\alpha$ LINE EMISSION IN A FIELD OF SUPER-CLUSTERED DAMPED LY-$\alpha$ ABSORBERS
Session 12 -- Absorption Lines in QSOs
Display presentation, Wednesday, January 12, 9:30-6:45, Salons I/II Room (Crystal Gateway)

## [12.02] LY-$\alpha$ LINE EMISSION IN A FIELD OF SUPER-CLUSTERED DAMPED LY-$\alpha$ ABSORBERS

\def\lya{Ly$\alpha$~} \def\aj{A. J. , } \def\aa{Astr. Ap. , } Palle M\o ller ( European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA ), Stephen J. Warren ( Nuclear and Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK )

The quasar pair Q2138-4427 and Q2139-4434 is separated by 8 arcmin on the sky ($\approx 6$ Mpc), and they have correlated damped \lya absorption (DLA) at two redshifts, z=2.380 and z=2.853 (Francis, P. J., and Hewett, P. C., 1993, \aj 105 , 1633).

On three nights in September 1993 we imaged the field of Q2138-4427 in B, I, and a narrow band tuned to the DLA at z=2.853. The observations were carried out with the ESO 3.6m telescope. We find two emission line candidates in the field. The two candidates have line fluxes similar to the three sources found in the field of Q0528-250 (M{\o}ller, P., and Warren, S. J., 1993, \aa 270 , 43) but they are much brighter in the continuum. The two candidates are lying quite far from the quasar, so even if they are spectroscopically confirmed to be \lya emitters, they are unlikely to be identified with the absorber. Their continuum fluxes make them more likely to be either OII emitters at low redshift, or high redshift AGNs associated with the super-cluster structure reported by Francis and Hewett. \lya emission sources similar to the ones detected in the field of Q0528-250 are not seen. A comparison of these new results with our previous detections will allow us to draw general conclusions on the nature of the damped systems.