A Survey of Ly Emission around Damped Ly Absorbers at z 2 with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager

We present Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) Ly alpha integral field spectroscopy of the fields surrounding 14 Damped Ly alpha absorbers (DLAs) at z approximate to 2. Of these 14 DLAs, 9 have high metallicities ([M/H] >-0.3), and 4 of those 9 feature a CO-emitting galaxy at an impact parameter less than or similar to 30 kpc. Our search reaches median Ly alpha line flux sensitivities of similar to 2x10(-17) erg s(-1) cm(-2) over apertures of similar to 6 kpc and out to impact parameters of similar to 50 kpc. We recover the Ly alpha flux of three known Ly alpha-emitting H I-selected galaxies in our sample. In addition, we find two Ly alpha emitters at impact parameters of approximate to 50-70 kpc from the high metallicity DLA at z approximate to 1.96 toward QSO B0551-366. This field also contains a massive CO-emitting galaxy at an impact parameter of approximate to 15 kpc. Apart from the field with QSO B0551-366, we do not detect significant Ly alpha emission in any of the remaining 8 high-metallicity DLA fields. Considering the depth of our observations and our ability to recover previously known Ly alpha emitters, we conclude that H I-selected galaxies associated with high-metallicity DLAs at z approximate to 2 are dusty, and therefore might feature low Ly alpha escape fractions. Our results indicate that complementary approaches -- using Ly alpha, CO, H alpha, and [C II] 158 mu m emission -- are necessary to identify the wide range of galaxy types associated with z approximate to 2 DLAs.