Asymmetric Absorption Profile of Damped Lyman Alpha and Beta Systems

Due to the quantum interference of many atomic levels, the exact scattering cross section around a given resonance transition deviates from the Lorentz function when the frequency of the incident radiation is quite far from the resonance frequency. This atomic effect is quite significant in the case of damped Ly alpha systems, where HI column density is in excess of 10^20 cm^-2. In this poster, we present the deviation quantitatively taking into consideration of the Rayleigh and Raman scattering around Lyman alpha and Lyman beta.