Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21942416f&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #424.16
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will discover 0.8 million Lyman alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) at 1.9 < z < 3.5 over 300 square degrees beginning in Fall 2012. This unprecedentedly large volume probed will allow the discovery of large samples of bright LAEs, enabling follow-up science which cannot be done for the bulk of the LAE population, as they form the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function. Combining the HETDEX sample with the new generation of multi-object near-infrared (NIR) spectrographs will allow direct measurements of LAE physical properties, which are of interest as LAEs appear similar to galaxies at very high redshifts (z > 7) , and LAEs are also the likely progenitors of present-day Milky Way-like galaxies. Here we present results from the HETDEX pilot survey, which discovered 100 LAEs with a single integral field spectrograph mounted on the McDonald Observatory 2.7m telescope. We have detected rest-frame optical emission lines from five of these galaxies with the single-slit NIR spectrograph NIRSPEC on the Keck II 10m telescope. From the ratio of the upper limit on the (undetected) [NII] flux to the observed Halpha line strength, all five LAEs appear to have low metallicities (< 50% solar). The brightest LAE in our sample lies significantly below the mass-metallicity relation for continuum-selected galaxies at the same redshift. The remaining LAEs may also lie below this relation, however their fainter Halpha fluxes result in higher limits on the [NII]/Halpha flux ratio. Thus deeper integrations, requiring multi-object spectrographs (MOS) to be feasible, are necessary. The field-of-view of the next generation of MOS NIR spectrographs will be able to simultaneously observe > 10 HETDEX LAEs to a much deeper depth, providing a significant boost in our ability to probe the chemical enrichment of this enigmatic galaxy population.
Blanc Guillaume
Drory Niv
Finkelstein Steven L.
Gebhardt Karl
HETDEX Collaboration
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