2024A&A...691A.222P -
Astronomy and Astrophysics, volume 691A222 (2024/11-1)
The stellar population of a z ∼ 3.25 Lyα-emitting group associated with a damped Lyα absorber.
PRUTO G., FUMAGALLI M., RAFELSKI M., REVALSKI M., FOSSATI M., MACKENZIE R. and THEUNS T.
Abstract (from CDS):
We present near-infrared observations, acquired with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), of a Lyα-emitting double-clumped nebula at z ≈ 3.25 associated with a damped Lyα absorber (DLA). With the WFC3/F160W data we observe the stellar continuum around 3600 Å in the rest frame of a galaxy embedded in the west clump of the nebula, GW, for which we estimate a star formation rate (SFR) of SFRGW = 5.0 ± 0.4 M⊙ yr–1 and a maximum stellar mass MGW < 9.9 ± 0.7 × 109 M⊙. With the enhanced spatial resolution of HST, we discover the presence of an additional faint source, GE, in the center of the east clump, with SFRGE = 0.70 ± 0.20 M⊙ yr–1 and a maximum stellar mass MGE < 1.4 ± 0.4 × 109 M⊙. We show that the Lyα emission in the two clumps can be explained by recombination following in situ photoionization by the two galaxies, assuming escape fractions of ionizing photons of ≲0.24 for GW and ≲0.34 for GE. The fact that GW is offset by ≈8 kpc from the west clump means we cannot fully rule out the presence of additional fainter star-forming sources, which would further contribute to the photon budget inside this ≈1012 M⊙ galaxy group that extends over a region of 30 × 50 kpc.
Abstract Copyright:
© The Authors 2024
Journal keyword(s):
galaxies: groups: general - galaxies: halos - galaxies: high-redshift - quasars: absorption lines
Simbad objects:
1
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