SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES AT REDSHIFTS ∼4, 5, AND 6 IN THE GOODS-SOUTH FIELD

By E. Vanzella, M. Giavalisco, Mark Dickinson, S. Cristiani, M. Nonino, H. Kuntschner, P. Popesso, P. Rosati, A. Renzini, D. Stern and 3 more. 2009

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report on observations of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) selected from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey at mean redshifts z ∼ 4, 5, and 6 (B435-, V606-, and i775-band dropouts, respectively), obtained with the red-sensitive FORS2 spectrograph at the ESO VLT. This program has yielded spectroscopic identifications for 114 galaxies (∼60% of the targeted sample), of which 51 are at z ∼ 4, 31 at z ∼ 5, and 32 at z ∼ 6. We demonstrate that the adopted selection criteria are effective, identifying galaxies at the expected redshift with minimal foreground contamination. Of the 10% interlopers, 83% turn out to be Galactic stars. Once selection effects are properly accounted for, the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) spectra of the higher redshift LBGs appear to be similar to their counterparts at z ∼ 3. As at z ∼ 3, LBGs at z ∼ 4 and z ∼ 5 are observed with Lyα both in emission and in absorption; when in absorption, strong interstellar lines are also observed in the spectra. The stacked spectra of Lyα absorbers and emitters also show that the former have redder UV spectra and stronger but narrower interstellar lines, a fact also observed at z ∼ 2 and 3. At z ∼ 6, sensitivity issues bias our sample toward galaxies with Lyα in emission; nevertheless, these spectra appear to be similar to their lower redshift counterparts. As in other studies at similar redshifts, we find clear evidence that brighter LBGs tend to have weaker Lyα emission lines. At fixed rest-frame UV luminosity, the equivalent width of the Lyα emission line is larger at higher redshifts. At all redshifts where the measurements can be reliably made, the redshift of the Lyα emission line turns out to be larger than that of the interstellar absorption lines (ISLs), with a median velocity difference ΔV ∼ 400 km s−1 at z ∼ 4 and 5, consistent with results at lower redshifts. This shows that powerful, large-scale winds are common at high redshift. In general, there is no strong correlation between the morphology of the UV light and the spectroscopic properties. However, galaxies with deep ISLs and strong Lyα absorption appear to be more diffuse than galaxies with Lyα in emission.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d74da1235054843d2ccb424463361a9af4eb51c8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

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): “…of identifying high-redshift galaxies (Steidel et al. 1996; Steidel et al. 2003; Bunker et al. 2003; Dow- 4 Hygelund et al. 2007; Popesso et al. 2009; Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010), with generally minimal contamination, albeit with a few notable exceptions at brighter magnitudes (e.g.,…”
KECK SPECTROSCOPY OF 3 < z < 7 FAINT LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF NEBULAR EMISSION IN UNDERSTANDING THE SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE AND STELLAR MASS DENSITY (2012, methodology): “Taking advantage of a similar spectroscopic campaign undertaken using the FORS2 in GOODS-South (e.g., Vanzella et al. 2009), we retrospectively constructed a VLT sample using the same photometric criteria.”
COMPLETING THE CENSUS OF Lyα EMITTERS AT THE REIONIZATION EPOCH (2011, methodology): “As reported in previous lower-z studies (S06; Stark et al. 2010; Vanzella et al. 2009; Ouchi et al. 2008; Ando et al. 2006), we saw an apparent deficit of LAEs with large EW0 at bright UV magnitudes, and the maximum EW0 increased with lower UV luminosity, which is expected if low-luminosity…”
ARE ULTRA-FAINT GALAXIES AT z = 6–8 RESPONSIBLE FOR COSMIC REIONIZATION? COMBINED CONSTRAINTS FROM THE HUBBLE FRONTIER FIELDS CLUSTERS AND PARALLELS (2015, background): “…et al. 2011, 2012; Huang et al. 2013; Oesch et al. 2014), the distribution is based on the sizes derived from spectroscopically confirmed LBG samples at z ∼ 4 (Vanzella et al. 2009), while accounting for a redshift evolution of the intrinsic physical size of galaxies with a factor of (1 + z)−1.”
The mass evolution of the first galaxies: stellar mass functions and star formation rates at 4 < z < 7 in the CANDELS GOODS-South field (2014, unknown): “…spectroscopic redshifts are from the following surveys: Le Fèvre et al. (2004), Stanway et al. (2004), Vanzella et al. (2008), Hathi, Malhotra & Rhoads (2008), Popesso et al. (2009), Wuyts et al. (2009), Rhoads et al. (2009), Vanzella et al. (2009), Balestra et al. (2010), Kurk et al. (2012).”
THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE WIDE FIELD CAMERA 3 EARLY RELEASE SCIENCE DATA: PANCHROMATIC FAINT OBJECT COUNTS FOR 0.2–2 μm WAVELENGTH (2010, unknown): “…deep U+R-band VLT/VIMOS imaging (Nonino et al. 2009), deep VLT/ISAAC JHKs-band imaging (Retzlaff et al. 2010), a very large number of VLT spectra (Vanzella et al. 2005, 2009; Popesso et al. 2009; Balestra et al. 2010), deep Chandra X-ray images (Giacconi et al. 2002; 2 Msec by Luo et al. 2010;…”
UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 4 TO z ∼ 10: 10,000 GALAXIES FROM HST LEGACY FIELDS (2014, background): “In addition, the spectroscopic follow-up done on high-redshift samples reveal very small numbers of lower redshift contaminants (e.g., Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010).”
ULTRAVIOLET LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS FROM 132 z ∼ 7 AND z ∼ 8 LYMAN-BREAK GALAXIES IN THE ULTRA-DEEP HUDF09 AND WIDE-AREA EARLY RELEASE SCIENCE WFC3/IR OBSERVATIONS (2010, background): “…that these criteria are generally quite robust in identifying star-forming galaxies at z∼3-7 (e.g., Steidel et al. 1996, 2003; Popesso et al. 2009; Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010) though admittedly spectroscopic follow-up of the very faintest sources at z ≥ 4 has been ambiguous since…”
Keck spectroscopy of faint 3 < z < 7 Lyman break galaxies – I. New constraints on cosmic reionization from the luminosity and redshift-dependent fraction of Lyman α emission (2010, methodology): “For reference, we display the redshift distribution of the VLT/FORS2 survey (Vanzella et al. 2009) in light red.”
SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION OF z ∼ 7 LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES: PROBING THE EARLIEST GALAXIES AND THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION (2011, methodology): “Standard flat-fielding, bias subtraction and wavelength calibration have been applied as in Vanzella et al. (2009, 2011) and F10.”
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS IN A YOUNG, UNREDDENED, LOW-METALLICITY GALAXY AT HIGH REDSHIFT (2010, background): “Significant numbers of such galaxies are now being confirmed at z ∼ 5–6 (e.g. Yan et al. 2005; McLure et al. 2006; Ando et al. 2007; Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2009, 2010), and the recent installation of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope has resulted in a flurry…”
LINE-EMITTING GALAXIES BEYOND A REDSHIFT OF 7: AN IMPROVED METHOD FOR ESTIMATING THE EVOLVING NEUTRALITY OF THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM (2014, methodology): “By retrospectively applying the same photometric selection criteria, a spectroscopic sample in the GOODS-S field using the FORS2 spectrograph on the ESO Very Large Telescope was added (Vanzella et al. (2009) and references therein).”
Ionization state of inter-stellar medium in galaxies: evolution, SFR-M * -Z dependence, and ionizing photon escape (2013, background): “Because observations reveal that a fraction of LAEs to star-forming galaxies of LBGs increases with redshift (e.g. Ouchi et al. 2008; Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010; Stark, Ellis & Ouchi 2011), more LAEs with a high ionization parameter, i.e. a high fesc, would ease the tension of the…”
DEEP U BAND AND R IMAGING OF GOODS-SOUTH: OBSERVATIONS, DATA REDUCTION AND FIRST RESULTS, (2009, methodology): “ESO has carried out several major observing campaigns to complement the HST and Spitzer GOODS data sets, including extensive spectroscopy (Vanzella et al. 2008, 2009; Popesso et al. 2009), and near-infrared imaging (J. Retzlaff et al. 2009, in preparation).”
SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION OF TWO LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES AT REDSHIFT BEYOND 7 (2010, methodology): “Standard flat-fielding, bias subtraction and wavelength calibration have been applied as in Vanzella et al. (2009) and F10.”
Lyα EMISSION FROM A LUMINOUS z = 8.68 GALAXY: IMPLICATIONS FOR GALAXIES AS TRACERS OF COSMIC REIONIZATION (2015, background): “Finally, the absence of a Lyα detection in the spectrum of a proposed high-redshift candidate may simply imply the source is a foreground galaxy (although the contamination rate for such galaxies is typically very low, e.g. Vanzella et al. 2009; Stark et al. 2010).”
VERY STRONG EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES IN THE WFC3 INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC PARALLEL SURVEY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES, (2011, background): “…CA 93106 8 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, OX13RH, U.K. 9 Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility, Garching bei München, Germany 2003; Vanzella et al. 2009; Hathi et al. 2010) , and can favor relatively massive galaxy populations.”