2017MNRAS.466.1242S -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 466, 1242-1258 (2017/March-3)
The CALYMHA survey: Lyα luminosity function and global escape fraction of Lyα photons at z = 2.23.
SOBRAL D., MATTHEE J., BEST P., STROE A., ROTTGERING H., OTEO I., SMAIL I., MORABITO L. and PAULINO-AFONSO A.
Abstract (from CDS):
We present the CAlibrating LYMan-α with Hα (CALYMHA) pilot survey and new results on Lyman α (Lyα) selected galaxies at z ∼ 2. We use a custom-built Lyα narrow-band filter at the Isaac Newton Telescope, designed to provide a matched volume coverage to the z = 2.23 Hα HiZELS survey. Here, we present the first results for the COSMOS and UDS fields. Our survey currently reaches a 3σ line flux limit of ∼4 x 10–17 erg s–1 cm–2, and a Lyα luminosity limit of ∼1042.3 erg s–1. We find 188 Lyα emitters over 7.3 x 105 Mpc3, but also find significant numbers of other line-emitting sources corresponding to He II, C III] and C IV emission lines. These sources are important contaminants, and we carefully remove them, unlike most previous studies. We find that the Lyα luminosity function at z = 2.23 is very well described by a Schechter function up to L_Ly α_ ≃ 1043 erg s–1 with L^*=1042.59^+0.16–0.08 erg s–1, φ^*=10-3.09^+0.14–0.34 Mpc–3 and α = -1.75 ± 0.25. Above L_Ly α_ ≃ 1043 erg s–1, the Lyα luminosity function becomes power-law like, driven by X-ray AGN. We find that Lyα-selected emitters have a high escape fraction of 37 ± 7 per cent, anticorrelated with Lyα luminosity and correlated with Lyα equivalent width. Lyα emitters have ubiquitous large (≃40 kpc) Lyα haloes, ∼2 times larger than their Hα extents. By directly comparing our Lyα and Hα luminosity functions, we find that the global/overall escape fraction of Lyα photons (within a 13 kpc radius) from the full population of star-forming galaxies is 5.1 ± 0.2 per cent at the peak of the star formation history. An extra 3.3 ± 0.3 per cent of Lyα photons likely still escape, but at larger radii.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
Journal keyword(s):
galaxies: evolution - galaxies: haloes - galaxies: high-redshift - galaxies: luminosity function, mass function - galaxies: statistics - cosmology: observations - cosmology: observations
VizieR on-line data:
<Available at CDS (J/MNRAS/466/1242): tablea2.dat>
Nomenclature:
Table A2: CALYMHA-S16-NNN (Nos 1-440).
Status at CDS
:
All or part of tables of objects could be ingested in SIMBAD with priority 2.
Simbad objects:
2
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