Estimating the mass density of neutral gas at z < 1

We use the relationships between galactic H I mass and B-band luminosity determined by Rao & Briggs to recalculate the mass density of neutral gas at the present epoch based on more recent measures of the galaxy luminosity function than were available to those authors. We find Ωgas(z = 0) ≃ 5× 10 −4 in good agreement with the original Rao & Briggs value, suggesting that this quantity is now reasonably secure. We then show that, if the scaling between H I mass and B-band luminosity has remained approximately constant since z = 1, the evolution of the luminosity function found by the Canada-France redshift survey translates to an increase of Ωgas by a factor of ≈ 3 at z = 0.5−1 . A similar value is obtained quite independently from consideration of the luminosity function of Mg II absorbers at z = 0.65. By combining these new estimates with data from damped Lyman α systems at higher redshift, it is possible to assemble a rough sketch of the evolution of Ωgas over the last 90% of the age of the universe. The consumption of H I gas with time is in broad agreement with models of chemical evolution which include the effects of dust, although more extensive samples of damped Lyman α systems at low and intermediate redshift are required for a quantitative assessment of the dust bias.