The Building Blocks of Lyman Break Galaxies at z ≥ 7

Details The Building Blocks of Lyman Break Galaxies at z ≥ 7 The Building Blocks of Lyman Break Galaxies at z ≥ 7

Jan 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21535007f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #350.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.533

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We study the physical characteristics of Lyman-break-selected galaxies (LBGs) at 6.5 ≤ z ≤ 8.5, which have recently been discovered with deep near-IR imaging with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope. We investigate the rest-frame UV colors, stellar masses, ages, and dust extinction of this galaxy sample. The rest-frame UV colors are bluer than local star-forming galaxies, necessitating young ages for the stellar populations (< 100 Myr, in most cases < 30 Myr), with low-metallicity (Z < 0.005 solar metallicity) with low or possibly zero dust attenuation. The majority of these objects are undetected in deep Spitzer IRAC imaging at 3.6 and 4.5 microns. Combined with the WFC3 flux-density measurements, the implied stellar masses are 108 - 109 solar masses, where the age of the Universe limits the amount of mass that could exist from previous stellar populations. The masses of typical z ≥ 7 galaxies are lower than luminous LBGs at lower redshifts, and more characteristic of less evolved galaxies selected on the basis of their Lyman alpha emission at 3 < z < 6. We find that including the effects of possible (or likely) Lyman alpha emission in these objects has a sizable effect on their colors. The range of inferred Lyman alpha line fluxes in these objects is (1 - 4) x 10-18 erg s-1 cm-2, with a typical line flux of 10-18 erg s-1 cm-2, a factor of four fainter than the deepest currently planned narrowband imaging survey.

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