An Imaging Survey for Line Emission at High Redshift

Other

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

We present the results from a narrow-band imaging survey for emission-line objects at high redshift using a Fabry-Perot interferometer. Specifically, this survey was designed to detect Lyalpha emission from young and possibly forming galaxies. A total of 12 ``blank'' fields were imaged with a useful field size of ~ 5 arcmin square, 7 in the approximate redshift range 4.75-4.89, 3 in the range 4.42-4.60, and one each in the ranges 3.16-3.27 and 2.80-2.98. A total comoving volume of nearly 150,000 Mpc(3) was surveyed (H _0 = 75, Omega_0 = 0.2) to a line flux level deep enough to detect L(*) galaxies with 1% of their bolometric luminosity in the Lyalpha line. Using the local space density of galaxies, this is a sufficient volume to have detected about 1000 L(*) galaxies. While none of the galaxies for which we have follow-up spectroscopy show definite Lyalpha emission, several interesting candidates do exist, as well as a fair number which still await a first spectroscopic observation. Lack of detection of strong Lyalpha emission from a population of primeval galaxies in this and similar surveys imply that either 1) galaxy formation was an inherently dusty process and UV photons, especially Lyalpha , are easily destroyed, or 2) galaxy formation took place at different redshifts than can easily be surveyed with optical instruments, or 3) galaxy formation takes place via some other process than the model used for the design of this experiment (formation of the majority of a galaxy's stellar population in one or two freefall times ~ 10(8) yr). Most of the candidates for which we have a spectroscopically confirmed, FP-selected emission-line are galaxies at z ~ 0.3-1, possibly representative of the faint blue galaxies seen in the deep field surveys by Tyson, Cowie, Lilly, and others.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

An Imaging Survey for Line Emission at High Redshift does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with An Imaging Survey for Line Emission at High Redshift, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and An Imaging Survey for Line Emission at High Redshift will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-779826

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.