A Measurement of the Contamination in [O III] λ5007 Surveys of Intracluster Stars and the Surface Density of z=3.13 Lyα Galaxies

Details A Measurement of the Contamination in [O III] λ5007 Surveys of Intracluster Stars and the Surface Density of z=3.13 Lyα Galaxies A Measurement of the Contamination in [O III] λ5007 Surveys of Intracluster Stars and the Surface Density of z=3.13 Lyα Galaxies

Feb 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002apj...566..784c&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 566, Issue 2, pp. 784-793.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

35

Cosmology: Observations, Galaxies: Clusters: General, Galaxies: Evolution, Galaxies: Formation, Galaxies: Interactions, Ism: Planetary Nebulae: General

Scientific paper

We present two pieces of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the bright [O III] λ5007 sources found in Virgo's intracluster space are intracluster planetary nebulae rather than [O II] λ3727 galaxies at z~0.35 or Lyα sources at z~3.13. First, we confirm the nature of five ``overluminous'' [O III] sources that are postulated to lie in front of M87: by examining the composite spectrum of these objects, we show that the weaker [O III] line at λ4959 is definitely present at a strength ~1/3 that of [O III] λ5007. The ratio demonstrates that, at most, only one of the five objects is a background galaxy. We then estimate the surface density of background emission-line objects by conducting a wide-field (0.13 deg2) search at λ5019 for faint emission-line sources in a ``blank field'' located well away from any galaxy or cluster. We show that the density of blank-field emission-line sources is significantly lower than the density of sources detected between the galaxies of Virgo but in good agreement with the density of Lyα galaxies found by Hu, Cowie, & McMahon. The implication is that background galaxies account for only ~20% of the planetary nebula candidates in Virgo's intracluster fields.

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