  We have carried out a high angular resolution near-infrared imaging study of
the fields of 6 quasars with 7 strong absorption line systems at z < 0.5, using
the Hokupa'a adaptive optics system and the QUIRC near-infrared camera on the
Gemini-North telescope. These absorption systems include 4 classical damped
Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs), 2 sub-DLAs, and one Lyman-limit system. Images
were obtained in the H or K' filters with FWHM between 0.2"-0.5" with the goal
of detecting the absorbing galaxies and identifying their morphologies.
Features are seen at projected separations of 0.5"-16.0" from the quasars and
all of the fields show features at less than 2" separation. We find candidate
absorbers in all of the seven systems. With the assumption that some of these
are associated with the absorbers, the absorbers are low luminosity < 0.1 L*_H
or L*_K; we do not find any large bright candidate absorbers in any of our
fields. Some fields show compact features that are too faint for quantitative
morphology, but could arise in dwarf galaxies.
