Gas flows in and out of galaxies through their circumgalactic medium ( CGM ) are poorly constrained and direct observations of this faint , diffuse medium remain challenging .
We use a sample of five z \sim 1-2 galaxy counterparts to Damped Lyman- \alpha Absorbers ( DLAs ) to combine data on cold gas , metals and stellar content of the same galaxies .
We present new HST/WFC3 imaging of these fields in 3-5 broadband filters and characterise the stellar properties of the host galaxies .
By fitting the spectral energy distribution , we measure their stellar masses to be in the range of log ( M _ { * } / \text { M } _ { \odot } ) \sim 9.1 - 10.7 .
Combining these with IFU observations , we find a large spread of baryon fractions inside the host galaxies , between 7 and 100 percent .
Similarly , we find gas fractions between 3 and 56 percent .
Given their star formation rates , these objects lie on the expected main sequence of galaxies .
Emission line metallicities indicate they are consistent with the mass-metallicity relation for DLAs .
We also report an apparent anti-correlation between the stellar masses and N ( \ion Hi ) , which could be due to a dust bias effect or lower column density systems tracing more massive galaxies .
We present new ALMA observations of one of the targets leading to a molecular gas mass of log ( M _ { mol } /M _ { \odot } ) < 9.89 .
We also investigate the morphology of the DLA counterparts and find that most of the galaxies show a clumpy structure and suggest ongoing tidal interaction .
Thanks to our high spatial resolution HST data , we gain new insights in the structural complexity of the CGM .