Searching for Low Surface-brightness Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Implications for the Star Formation Efficiency in Neutral Gas at z ~ 3
(Abridged) The Kennicutt--Schmidt law relates the face-on star formation rate (SFR) per unit area with the face-on gaseous column density in nearby galaxies. Applying this relation to damped Lya absorption systems (DLAs) of neutral hydrogen column density N > 1.6x10^21 cm^-2 leads to an estimate that three percent of the sky should be covered with extended sources brighter than mu_V~28.4 mag arcsec^-2, if DLAs at redshift z=[2.5,3.5] undergo in situ star formation. We test this hypothesis by searching the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) F606W image for low surface-brightness features of angular sizes, ranging between theta_dla=0.25" and 4.0". Our search yields upper limits on the comoving SFR densities that are between factors of 30 and 100 lower than predictions, suggesting a reduction by more than a factor of 10 in star formation efficiency at z~3. We consider several mechanisms that could reduce star formation efficiency at high redshift. We find that the cosmological increase with redshift of the critical surface density for the Toomre instability may be sufficient to suppress star formation to the levels implied by the UDF observations. However, the uncertainties are such that Toomre instabilities may still exist. In that case star formation at column densities less than 10^22 cm^-2 may be suppressed by the low molecular content of the DLA gas. The upper limits on in situ star formation reduce the predicted metallicities at z~3 to be significantly lower than observed, and reduce the heat input in the gas to be substantially lower than the inferred cooling rates. In contrast, the radiative output from compact Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) with R<27 is sufficient to balance the comoving cooling rate.