We report the discovery of a dwarf ( M _ { B } = -13.9 ) post-starburst galaxy coincident in recession velocity ( within uncertainties ) with the highest column density absorber ( N _ { H~ { } I } = 10 ^ { 15.85 } cm ^ { -2 } at cz = 1586 km s ^ { -1 } ) in the 3C 273 sightline .
This galaxy is by far the closest galaxy to this absorber , projected just 71h ^ { -1 } _ { 70 } kpc on the sky from the sightline .
The mean properties of the stellar populations in this galaxy are consistent with a massive starburst \approx 3.5 Gyrs ago , whose attendant supernovae , we argue , could have driven sufficient gas from this galaxy to explain the nearby absorber .
Beyond the proximity on the sky and in recession velocity , the further evidence in favor of this conclusion includes both a match in the metallicities of absorber and galaxy , and the fact that the absorber has an overabundance of Si/C , suggesting recent type II supernova enrichment .
Thus , this galaxy and its ejecta are the expected intermediate stage in the fading dwarf evolutionary sequence envisioned by Babul & Rees to explain the abundance of faint blue galaxies at intermediate redshifts .
While this one instance of a QSO metal line absorber and a nearby dwarf galaxy is not proof of a general trend , a similar dwarf galaxy would be too faint to be observed by galaxy surveys around more distant metal line absorbers .
Thus , we can not exclude the possibility that dwarf galaxies are primarily responsible for weak ( N _ { H~ { } I } = 10 ^ { 14 - 17 } cm ^ { -2 } ) metal line absorption systems in general .
If a large fraction of the dwarf galaxies expected to exist at high redshift had a similar history ( i.e. , they had a massive starburst which removed all or most of their gas ) , these galaxies could account for at least several hundred high- z metal-line absorbers along the line-of-sight to a high- z QSO .
The volume filling factor for this gas , however , would be < 1 \% .