2016MNRAS.455.1043M

The dust content of damped Lyman α systems (DLAs) is an important observable for understanding their origin and the neutral gas reservoirs of galaxies. While the average colour excess of DLAs, E(B - V), is known to be ≲ 15 millimagnitude (mmag), both detections and non-detections with ∼ 2 mmag precision have been reported. Here we find 3.2σ statistical evidence for DLA dust-reddening of 774 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars by comparing their fitted spectral slopes to those of ∼ 7000 control quasars. The corresponding E(B - V) is 3.0±1.0 mmag, assuming a Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) dust extinction law, and it correlates strongly (3.5σ) with the metal content, characterized by the Si II λ1526 absorption-line equivalent width, providing additional confidence that the detection is due to dust in the DLAs. Evolution of E(B - V) over the redshift range 2.1 < z < 4.0 is limited to <2.5 mmag per unit redshift (1σ), consistent with the known, mild DLA metallicity evolution. There is also no apparent relationship with neutral hydrogen column density, N_H I, though the data are consistent with a mean E(B¡-¡V)/N_H I=(3.5±1.0)×10^-24 mag cm2, approximately the ratio expected from the SMC scaled to the lower metallicities typical of DLAs. We implement the SDSS selection algorithm in a portable code to assess the potential for systematic, redshift-dependent biases stemming from its magnitude and colour-selection criteria. The effect on the mean E(B - V) is negligible (<5 per cent) over the entire redshift range of interest. Given the broad potential usefulness of this implementation, we make it publicly available.