Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21911104r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #111.04
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We have observed strong nebular lines of [OIII] and H alpha for Lyman-alpha galaxies at z=2-3.1 using Keck+NIRSPEC, LBT+LUCIFER, and Gemini+NIFS. [OIII] 5007 is strong enough to dominate the 2 micron K band fluxes of these galaxies, and leads to an overestimate of the stellar mass of the galaxy by an order of magnitude. After correcting for the observed [OIII] lines, we infer low masses and young ages for these galaxies. We also use the physical widths of the rest-optical lines, combined with spatial sizes from HST imaging, to obtain direct dynamical mass estimates of Lyman alpha galaxies (which cannot be done using the resonantly scattered Lyman alpha line). Finally, we combine our stellar mass estimates and line widths to place these galaxies on the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. We find that the stellar masses required to reproduce the observed light are lower than one would expect based on the galaxies' line widths. The stellar mass densities of these galaxies are comparable to those of elliptical galaxies today.
We gratefully acknowledge support from NSF grant NSF-AST-0808165.
Finkelstein Steven L.
Malhotra Sagar
McLinden Emily
Rhoads James E.
Richardson M. L.
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