Star Formation in Damped Lyman α Selected Galaxies

I present results from an ongoing survey to study galaxies associated with damped Lyman-α (DLA) systems at redshifts z>2. Integral field spectroscopy is used to search for Lyα emission line objects at the wavelengths where the emission from the quasars have been absorbed by the DLAs. The DLA galaxy candidates detected in this survey are found at distances of 10-20 kpc from the quasar line of sight, implying that galaxies are surrounded by neutral hydrogen at large distances. If we assume that the distribution of neutral gas is exponential, the scale length of the neutral gas is ~6 kpc, similar to large disk galaxies in the local Universe. The emission line luminosities imply smaller star formation rates compared to other high redshift galaxies found in luminosity selected samples.