A Keck hires investigation of the metal abundances and kinematics of the z=2.46 damped Ly alpha system toward Q0201+365

We present high-resolution (approximate to 8 km s(-1)) spectra of the QSO Q0201+365 obtained with HIRES, the echelle spectrograph on the 10 m W. M. Keck Telescope. Although we identify over 80% of the absorption features and analyze several of the more complex metal-line systems, we focus our analysis on the damped Ly alpha system at z = 2.462. Ionization simulations suggest the hydrogen in this system is significantly neutral and all of the observed metals are predominantly singly ionized. We measure accurate abundances for Fe, Cr, Si, and Ni and place a lower limit on the abundance of Zn: [Fe/H] = -0.830 +/- 0.051, [Cr/H] = -0.902 +/- 0.064, [Si/H] = -0.376 +/- 0.052, [Ni/H] = -1.002 +/- 0.054, and [Zn/H] > -0.562 +/- 0.064. We give evidence suggesting the actual Zn abundance is [Zn/H] approximate to -0.262 implying the highest metallicity observed at a redshift z greater than or equal to 2. The relative abundances of these elements remains constant over essentially the entire system (approximate to 150 km s(-1) in velocity space), suggesting it is well mixed. Furthermore, we use the lack of abundance variations to infer properties of the dust responsible for element depletion. Finally, we discuss the kinematic characteristics of this damped Ly alpha system, comparing and contrasting it with other systems. The low-ion line profiles span approximate to 200 km s(-1) in velocity space and have an asymmetric shape with the strongest feature on the red edge. These kinematic characteristics are consistent with a rotating disk model.