The explosion energy of early stellar populations: The Fe-peak element
  ratios in low metallicity damped Lyman-alpha systems
  The relative abundances of the Fe-peak elements (Ti-Zn) at the lowest
metallicities are intimately linked to the physics of core-collapse supernova
explosions. With a sample of 25 very metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha systems, we
investigate the trends of the Fe-peak element ratios with metallicity. For nine
of the 25 DLAs, a direct measurement (or useful upper limit) of one or more of
the Ti,Cr,Co,Ni,Zn/Fe abundance ratios could be determined from detected
absorption lines. For the remaining systems (without detections), we devised a
new form of spectral stacking to estimate the typical Fe-peak element ratios of
the DLA population in this metallicity regime. We compare these data to
analogous measurements in metal-poor stars of the Galactic halo and to detailed
calculations of explosive nucleosynthesis in metal-free stars. We conclude that
most of the DLAs in our sample were enriched by stars that released an energy
of < 1.2 x 10^51 erg when they exploded as core-collapse supernovae. Finally,
we discuss the exciting prospect of measuring Fe-peak element ratios in damped
Lyman-alpha systems with Fe/H < 1/1000 of solar when 30-m class telescopes
become available. Only then will we be able to pin down the energy that was
released by the supernovae of the first stars.
