Detailed studies of Damped and sub-Damped Lyman- \alpha systems ( DLA ) , the galaxies probed by the absorption they produce in the spectra of background quasars , rely on identifying the galaxy responsible for the absorber with more traditional methods .
Integral field spectroscopy provides an efficient way of detecting faint galaxies near bright quasars , further providing immediate redshift confirmation .
Here , we report the detection of H- \alpha emission from a DLA and a sub-DLA galaxy among a sample of 6 intervening quasar absorbers targeted .
We derive F ( H- \alpha ) =7.7 \pm 2.7 \times 10 ^ { -17 } erg/s/cm ^ { 2 } ( SFR=1.8 \pm 0.6 M _ { \odot } /yr ) at impact parameter b=25 kpc towards quasar Q0302 - 223 for the DLA at z _ { abs } =1.009 and F ( H- \alpha ) =17.1 \pm 6.0 \times 10 ^ { -17 } erg/s/cm ^ { 2 } ( SFR=2.9 \pm 1.0 M _ { \odot } /yr ) at b=39 kpc towards Q1009 - 0026 for the sub-DLA at z _ { abs } =0.887 .
These results are in line with low star formation rates previously reported in the literature for quasar absorbers .
We use the [ N II ] \lambda 6585/H- \alpha ratio to derive the HII emission metallicities and compare them with the neutral gas H i  absorption metallicities derived from high-resolution spectra .
In one case , the absorption metallicity is actually found to be higher than the emission line metallicity .
For the remaining objects , we achieve 3- \sigma limiting fluxes of the order F ( H- \alpha ) \sim 10 ^ { -17 } erg/s/cm ^ { 2 } ( corresponding to SFR \sim 0.1 M _ { \odot } /yr at z \sim 1 and \sim 1 M _ { \odot } /yr at z \sim 2 ) , i.e .
among the lowest that have been possible with ground-based observations .
We also present two other galaxies associated with C iv  systems and serendipitously discovered in our data .