Damped Lyman- \alpha absorbers ( DLAs ) , seen in absorption against a background quasar , provide the most detailed probes available of element abundances in the Universe over > 90 \% of its age .
DLAs can be used to observationally measure the global mean metallicity in the Universe and its evolution with time .
Paradoxically , these observations are more difficult at lower redshifts , where the absorber rest-frame UV spectra are cut-off due to the atmospheric absorption .
We present here high-resolution VLT/UVES observations of several elements contained in three DLAs and one sub-DLA with 0.6 < z _ { abs } < 0.9 .
We detect Mg I , Mg II , Fe II , Zn II , Cr II , Mn II , Ti II and Ca II .
Our observations more than double the high-resolution sample of [ Zn/H ] at z < 1 .
We also report the discovery of three metal-rich systems , whereas most previous measurements show low N _ { HI } -weighted mean metallicity projecting to about 1/6 ^ { th } solar level at z=0 .
We derive [ Zn/H ] = - 0.11 \pm 0.04 at z _ { abs } =0.725 , [ Zn/H ] = - 0.54 \pm 0.20 at z _ { abs } =0.740 and [ Zn/H ] = - 0.49 \pm 0.22 at z _ { abs } =0.652 , plus one additional upper limit ( [ Zn/H ] < - 0.36 at z _ { abs } =0.842 ) .
These measurements confirm the existence of quasar absorbers with relatively high metallicities based on abundance estimates free from the effect of dust depletion .
Possible implications of these results for the metallicity of neutral gas phase in the past \approx 8 Gyr are presented and compared with models .