Direct Stellar Mass Determinations for Individual Lyman Alpha Emitters at z~2

Details Direct Stellar Mass Determinations for Individual Lyman Alpha Emitters at z~2 Direct Stellar Mass Determinations for Individual Lyman Alpha Emitters at z~2

Apr 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009sptz.prop60177r&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #60177

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Scientific paper

We propose to obtain deep IRAC 3.6 micron imaging of fields where we have conducted a survey of low redshift (z~1.9) Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs), in order to measure directly their individual stellar masses. The targeted sample includes ~25 spectroscopically-confirmed LAEs at zD1.7-2.1 and roughly twice as many candidates, for a total sample size of ~75 objects. This would constitute perhaps the largest sample of homogeneously selected LAEs with individual measurements of their masses, allowing for a unique opportunity to correlate such measurements with other galaxy properties. In particular, the proposed imaging enables us to quantify the actual stellar mass distribution in of LAEs (as opposed to a stacked average) and, using these data, we will (1) determine whether stellar mass anti-correlates with Lyman-alpha emission, suggesting that Ly-alpha may be a signpost of young galaxies; (2) combine clustering and stellar mass measurements to infer duty cycles of LAEs and if they are triggered in the presence of larger scale structures; (3) combine number density and stellar masses to infer a stellar mass function of LAEs, which when compared with the mass function of all galaxies will shed new light on the importance of the LAE phase at different galaxy mass scales; and (4) quantify the ages of LAEs as inferred from the stellar mass and star formation rate measurements to ascertain the age distribution of low-z LAEs and compare with their higher redshift (z>3) counterparts, and compare the ages to the duty cycles of LAEs. IRAC imaging is a unique tool to pursue these investigations since 3.6 micron samples the peak of the stellar continuum and is less contaminated by current star formation at z~1.9 than at z>3 (where almost all studies have been focused). Thus, a first step to understanding the physical properties of LAEs as function of cosmic time hinges on our ability to rigorously investigate their nature at lower redshifts where the observations are more amenable.

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