Lyman-α Galaxies at High Redshift James E. Rhoads (Space Telescope Science Institute) with Sangeeta Malhotra, Steve Dawson, Arjun Dey, Buell Jannuzi, Emily Landes, Hy Spinrad, Dan Stern, JunXian Wang, and Chun Xu

Lyman α as a Signpost of Primordial Galaxies We are looking for the first galaxies to form from primordial gas. Such objects should have… Young stars, with high ultraviolet luminosities. Considerable amounts of gas. Very low abundances of heavy elements, implying –Stars that are hotter than “normal” (for fixed mass); –Low dust abundances.

Lyman α Line Emission Ionizing flux + gas → 2 Lyman α photons for every 3 ionizing photons absorbed by hydrogen. In principle, up to 6-7% of a young galaxy’s luminosity may emerge in the Lyman α line (for a Salpeter IMF).

The Narrowband Search Method We take pictures of a large area of sky in both broad and narrow filters. Emission line sources appear bright in narrow filters (demand 5σ). The blue “veto filter” eliminates foreground emission line objects (demand < 2σ).

Windows for Narrowband Surveys Red lines mark our survey filter wavelengths. Line searches are highly efficient in far red!

The Large Area Lyman Alpha Survey (LALA): an Overview z Ω; VolumeSensitivityCandidates, Spectroscopic Success rate x10 6 Mpc 3 (1/2 in Bootes) 1.7x ergs/s/cm 2 350; > 70% 5.76 x10 5 Mpc 3 (1/3 in Bootes) 1x ergs/s/cm 2 ~50; ~ 70% x10 5 Mpc 3 (all in Bootes) 2x ergs/s/cm 2 3; 1 of 3 confirmed. z=4.5: Rhoads et al 2000, Malhotra & Rhoads 2002, Dawson et al 2004 in prep; z=5.7: Rhoads & Malhotra 2001, Rhoads et al 2003, Wang et al 2004 in prep. z=6.5: Rhoads et al 2004

Physical Nature of Ly-α Galaxies These are young star forming galaxies: High equivalent widths require youth, plus either low metallicity or top-heavy IMF (Malhotra & Rhoads 2002) AGN are ruled out by a combination of X-ray observations (see JunXian Wang’s talk [48.14] in this session) and optical spectroscopy (see Steve Dawson’s talk [48.04] in this session).

Candidate z=6.5 LALA galaxies I c (NDWFS) z’ SDSS NB918 All data from NOAO 4m telescopes; NB918 stack is 24 hours’ integration.

LALA J at z=6.535 Gemini spectrum shows an Asymmetric line and no continuum. Nod and shuffle helps eliminate the possibility of other lines if [OIII] (5007) (Rhoads et al. 2004; Gemini spectrum reduced by Chun Xu.)

Physical properties of this galaxy Line luminosity erg s -1. Star formation rate: 11 M sun / year –Based on Lyman-α line + Kennicutt IMF + Case B recombination… Some modelling uncertainty. Equivalent width > 530Å observer frame (2σ lower bound from photometry) –Rest frame > 70 Å (naively) –Boosting z’ flux to account for IGM absorption under Madau’s (1995) prescription gives > 40Å Spatially unresolved in 1” seeing  < 6 kpc.

“May you live in interesting times…” The z = 6.5 universe was just 6% of its present age. Moreover, this precedes the redshift of the SDSS quasars with Gunn-Peterson troughs. Thus the 9200Å window affords a view of late reionization.

The Lyman-α ReionizationTest To Observer Ionized IGM Young starburst Lyman α photons Continuum Photons

The Lyman-α Reionization Test To Observer Neutral IGM Young starburst Lyman α photons Continuum Photons (Miralda-Escude 1998; Miralda-Escude & Rees 1998; Haiman & Spaans 1999; Loeb & Rybicki 1999)

Constraining Reionization with LALA Lyman α emitters at z=5.7 and 6.5 suggest z re > 6.5. (Rhoads & Malhotra 2001; ApJ Lett 563, L5; Hu et al 2002; Rhoads et al 2003; Rhoads et al 2004) Large equiv. width of the LALA object  line attenuation factor is a few at most. Figure: z=5.7 Ly-α sources from Rhoads et al 2003

Charting Reionization Current evidence: Combine the Lyman α and Gunn-Peterson tests so far to study the evolution of the mass avgeraged neutral fraction, x: There is no contradiction between the GP effect at z=6.2 and the Ly α at z=6.56. (Figure from Rhoads et al 2003)

Lyman α Test Details HII regions: R>1.2 pMpc  line center τ 0 < 1. –Residual neutrals in HII region matter. τ < τ 0 in the red wing of lines (Haiman 2002) Evolution affects galaxy counts… LBG comparison samples could resolve this. Gas motions alter Ly-α radiative transfer (Santos 2003). Bottom line: Factors of ~ 3 reduction in Ly-α luminosity are unavoidable in neutral universe. Reduction larger in many models but not all.

Star Formation and Metal Production Using LF constraint from HCM 6a  ~3e-2 Msun/yr/Mpc 3 star formation, and ~ 200 Msun/Myr/Mpc 3 of metal production… comparable to z ~ 4 numbers from UV continuum! Using instead lens+blank slit data of Santos et al could reduce both numbers by a factor ~ 30. Compare SFRD estimates of 5.2e-4 (Kodaira et al, z=6.5 Ly-α sample); 4.6e-4 (Stanway et al, z ~ 6 LBG sample); neither integrates a LF much below the observed limit. The usual conclusion: More good data wanted!

Summary Lyman-α provides an efficient way of finding young galaxies at high redshift. These galaxies afford a new probe of reionization, complementing the Gunn-Peterson test. Ly-α from LALA z=6.535 galaxy requires either a largely ionized IGM, or an intrinsic redshift of the line relative to systemic velocity. Remaining uncertainties in Lyman-α reionization test can be overcome using statistical samples.