Galaxy counterparts of metal-rich damped Lyα absorbers: the case of J205922.4−052842

We present observations of three new sources in the European Southern Observatory VLT/X-shooter survey dedicated to the detection of the emitting counterparts of damped Ly... (DLA) systems towards bright quasars (QSOs). The aim is to bridge the observational gap between absorption (i.e. DLAs) and emission-selected galaxies at z ~ 2.2-2.5, in order to get a more complete picture of (proto)galaxies around this epoch. The hypothesis is that because DLA galaxies fulfil metallicity-velocity width and luminosity-metallicity relations, high-metallicity DLAs are more likely to be detected in emission. The region around each QSO is covered with slits (1.3 arcsec x 11 arcsec) at three different position angles. In the DLA towards QSO J205922.4-052842 (...), Ly... emission is detected at 3... confidence limit at an impact parameter of