Lyman break galaxies and the star formation rate of the Universe at z≈ 6

By E. Stanway, A. Bunker, R. McMahon. 2003

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We determine the space density of UV-luminous starburst galaxies at z≈ 6 using deep HST ACS SDSS-i′ (F775W) and SDSS-z′ (F850LP) and VLT ISAAC J and Ks band imaging of the Chandra Deep Field South. We find eight galaxies and one star with (i′−z′) > 1.5 to a depth of z′AB= 25.6 (an 8σ detection in each of the 3 available ACS epochs). This corresponds to an unobscured star formation rate of ≈15 h−270 M⊙ yr−1 at z= 5.9, equivalent to L* for the Lyman-break population at z= 3–4 (ΩΛ= 0.7, ΩM= 0.3). We are sensitive to star-forming galaxies at 5.6 ≲z≲ 7.0 with an effective comoving volume of ≈1.8 × 105h−370 Mpc3 after accounting for incompleteness at the higher redshifts due to luminosity bias. This volume should encompass the primeval subgalactic-scale fragments of the progenitors of about a thousand L* galaxies at the current epoch. We determine a volume-averaged global star formation rate of (6.7 ± 2.7) × 10−4h70 M⊙ yr−1 Mpc−3 at z∼ 6 from rest-frame UV selected starbursts at the bright end of the luminosity function: this is a lower limit because of dust obscuration and galaxies below our sensitivity limit. This measurement shows that at z∼ 6 the star formation density at the bright end is a factor of ∼6 times less than that determined by Steidel et al. for a comparable sample of UV-selected galaxies at z= 3–4, and so extends our knowledge of the star formation history of the Universe to earlier times than previous work and into the epoch where reionization may have occurred.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/928944747b629ac3340a19743ac67ffd705eace9

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Citations in the corpus

z ~ 7-10 Galaxies in the HUDF and GOODS Fields: UV Luminosity Functions (2008, background): “At z ∼ 6, for example, the bright end of the UV LF (i.e., MUV,AB < −20.5) has been reported to be deficient by factors of ∼ 6 − 11 relative to z ∼ 3 − 4 (Stanway et al. 2003, 2004; Shimasaku et al. 2005; Bouwens et al. 2006).”
Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. I. Detection, Multiband Photometry, Photometric Redshifts, and Morphology (2006, background): “The UDF ACS & NIC3 FOVs were oriented to contain Strolger et al.’s supernova and a spectroscopically confirmed z = 5.8 object, corresponding to our #2225*.17 #2225* was originally detected as an i′-dropout by Stanway et al. (2003), and has since been known as SBM03#1.”
THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES BETWEEN REDSHIFT 4 AND 6: OBSERVING SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF MASSIVE GALAXIES IN FORMATION (2009, background): “Despite early controversies (Bunker et al. 2004; Stanway et al. 2003; Giavalisco et al. 2004a; Beckwith et al. 2006), it now seems clear that the star formation density declines with redshift beyond z ≃ 3.”
The star formation rate of the Universe at z~ 6 from the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (2004, result): “The UDF data supports our previous suggestions that the star formation rate at z ≈ 6 was about six times less than at z ≈ 3 (Stanway et al. 2003).”
Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: discovery of a class of compact extremely star-forming galaxies (2009, background): “These techniques have been extended to other redshifts out toz ∼ 6, using different photometric bands to select drop-out galaxies (e.g., Ouchi et al. 2001; Stanway et al. 2003; Giavalisco et al. 2004; Kakazu et al. 2007).”
UV Luminosity Functions at z~4, 5, and 6 from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and Other Deep Hubble Space Telescope ACS Fields: Evolution and Star Formation History (2007, background): “This has led some researchers to question whether high redshift galaxies are even capable of keeping the universe ionized (e.g., Stanway et al. 2003; Bunker et al. 2004).”
EVIDENCE FOR UBIQUITOUS HIGH-EQUIVALENT-WIDTH NEBULAR EMISSION IN z ∼ 7 GALAXIES: TOWARD A CLEAN MEASUREMENT OF THE SPECIFIC STAR-FORMATION RATE USING A SAMPLE OF BRIGHT, MAGNIFIED GALAXIES (2013, background): “…of galaxies at the earliest times has been predominantly mapped out by studying the rest-frame UV light in galaxies across cosmic time (e.g. Stanway et al., 2003; Bouwens et al., 2007; Bouwens et al., 2011; Lorenzoni et al., 2011; 1 Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, NL-2300 RA Leiden,…”
THE STELLAR MASS DENSITY AND SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE OF THE UNIVERSE AT z ∼ 7 (2009, background): “Extensive studies have been made of galaxies selected by the dropout technique out to redshift 6 (see e.g., Stanway et al. 2003; Bunker et al. 2004; Yan & Windhorst 2004; Bouwens et al. 2006, 2007; McLure et al. 2009a) thanks in part to the capabilities of the HST ACS and NICMOS cameras.”
The contribution of high-redshift galaxies to cosmic reionization: New results from deep WFC3 imaging of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2009, background): “…at z ≈ 6 were conflicting, with some groups claiming little to no evolution to z ∼ 3 (Giavalisco et al. 2004, Bouwens et al. 2003) while other work suggested that the star formation rate density at z ≈ 6 was significantly lower than in the well-studied LBGs at z = 3 − 4 (Stanway et al. 2003).”
Gamma-Ray Burst Formation Rate Inferred from the Spectral Peak Energy-Peak Luminosity Relation (2003, background): “The GRB formation rates did not decrease with z, in contrast with the star formation rates (SFRs) measured in the UV, optical, and infrared bands (e.g., Madau et al. 1996; Lilly et al. 1996; Barger et al. 2000; Stanway et al. 2003).”
A CENSUS OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES IN THE Z ∼ 9–10 UNIVERSE BASED ON HST+SPITZER OBSERVATIONS OVER 19 CLASH CLUSTERS: THREE CANDIDATE Z ∼ 9–10 GALAXIES AND IMPROVED CONSTRAINTS ON THE STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY AT Z ∼ 9.2 (2012, background): “Progressively, the high-redshift frontier has been extended to z ∼ 4-5 (e.g., Madau et al. 1996; Steidel et al. 1999), z ∼ 6 (e.g., Stanway et al. 2003; Bouwens et al. 2003; Dickinson et al. 2004), z ∼ 7 (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2004; Yan & Windhorst 2004; Bouwens & Illingworth 2006b; Iye et al. 2006;…”
UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 4 TO z ∼ 10: 10,000 GALAXIES FROM HST LEGACY FIELDS (2014, methodology): “…colors to those of z ∼ 6-7 galaxies and hence could be a meaningful contaminant, if one does not have information on the spatial profile of galaxies (Stanway et al. 2003; Bouwens et al. 2006; Ouchi et al. 2009; Tilvi 14 Oesch et al. (2013) demonstrated that one of the two z ∼ 9.5 candidates…”
The Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Luminosity Density of Star-forming Galaxies at Redshifts z > 3.5 (2003, background): “At face value this is still a relatively mild drop from the z ∼ 3 value, a factor ≈ 3.5, smaller than the factor ≈ 7 proposed by Stanway et al. (2003), but the error is too large for the constraint to be meaningful.”
Resolving the Formation of Protogalaxies. II. Central Gravitational Collapse (2007, background): “Several high-redshift starburst galaxies have been observed that host ubiquitous star formation at z > 6 (Stanway et al. 2003; Mobasher et al. 2005; Bouwens et al. 2006).”
Cosmic evolution of submillimeter galaxies and their contribution to stellar mass assembly (2009, unknown): “…al. (2004) 4.700 0.500 0.0200 0.0088 0.0088 UV Ouchi et al. (2004) 4.900 0.300 0.0088 0.0044 0.0044 UV Ouchi et al. (2004) 5.850 0.250 0.0034 0.0014 0.0014 UV Stanway et al. (2003) 1.000 0.500 0.2080 0.0990 0.0990 UV Thompson et al. (2006) 2.000 0.500 0.3980 0.1800 0.1800 UV Thompson et al. (2006)…”