Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 A GLIMPSE AT QUASAR HOST GALAXY FAR-UV EMISSION, USING DLAS AS NATURAL CORONAGRAPHS

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal In merger-driven models of massive galaxy evolution, the luminous quasar phase is expected to be accompanied by vigorous star formation in quasar host galaxies. In this paper, we use high column density Damped Lyman Alpha (DLA) systems along quasar sight lines as natural coronagraphs to directly study the far-UV (FUV) radiation from the host galaxies of luminous background quasars. We have stacked the spectra of ∼2,000 DLA systems (NHI> 1020.6 cm−2) with a median absorption redshift 〈z 〉 = 2.6 selected from quasars observed in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We detect residual flux in the dark troughs of the composite DLA spectra. The level of this residual flux significantly exceeds systematic errors in the SDSS fiber sky subtraction; furthermore, the residual flux is strongly correlated with the continuum luminosity of the background quasar, while uncorrelated with DLA column density or metallicity. We conclude that the flux could be associate