2001A&A...367...46K

We report a deep search for 21 cm emission/absorption from the z∼0.101 candidate damped Lyman-α system towards PKS 0439-433, using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The spectrum shows a weak absorption feature - at the 3.3 σ level - which yields a lower limit of 730K on the spin temperature of the system. No H I emission was detected: the 3σ upper limit on the H I mass of the absorber is 2.25x10⁹M_☉, for a velocity spread of ∼70km/s. The low H I mass and the high spin temperature seem to rule out the possibility that the absorber is a large gas-rich spiral galaxy.