A large Hα survey at z = 2.23, 1.47, 0.84 and 0.40: the 11 Gyr evolution of star-forming galaxies from HiZELS

By D. Sobral, I. Smail, P. Best, James E. Geach, Y. Matsuda, J. Stott, M. Cirasuolo, J. Kurk. 2012

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This paper presents new deep and wide narrow-band surveys undertaken with United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), Subaru and the Very Large Telescope (VLT), a unique combined effort to select large, robust samples of Hα star-forming galaxies at z = 0.40, 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23 (corresponding to look-back times of 4.2, 7.0, 9.2 and 10.6 Gyr) in a uniform manner over ∼2 deg^2 in the Cosmological Evolution Survey and Ultra Deep Survey fields. The deep multi-epoch Hα surveys reach a matched 3σ flux limit of ≈3 M_⊙ yr^(−1) out to z = 2.2 for the first time, while the wide area and the coverage over two independent fields allow us to greatly overcome cosmic variance and assemble by far the largest samples of Hα emitters. Catalogues are presented for a total of 1742, 637, 515 and 807 Hα emitters, robustly selected at z = 0.40, 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23, respectively, and used to determine the Hα luminosity function and its evolution. The faint-end slope of the Hα luminosity function is found to be α = −1.60 ± 0.08 over z = 0–2.23, showing no significant evolution. The characteristic luminosity of star-forming galaxies, L*_Hα, evolves significantly as log L*_Hα(z) = 0.45z + log L*_z = 0. This is the first time Hα has been used to trace star formation activity with a single homogeneous survey at z = 0.4–2.23. Overall, the evolution seen with Hα is in good agreement with the evolution seen using inhomogeneous compilations of other tracers of star formation, such as far-infrared and ultraviolet, jointly pointing towards the bulk of the evolution in the last 11 Gyr being driven by a statistically similar star-forming population across cosmic time, but with a strong luminosity increase from z ∼ 0 to ∼2.2. Our uniform analysis allows us to derive the Hα star formation history (SFRH) of the Universe, showing a clear rise up to z ∼ 2.2, for which the simple parametrization log_10ρSFR = −2.1(1 + z)^(−1) is valid over 80 per cent of the age of the Universe. The results reveal that both the shape and normalization of the Hα SFRH are consistent with the measurements of the stellar mass density growth, confirming that our Hα SFRH is tracing the bulk of the formation of stars in the Universe for z < 2.23. The star formation activity over the last ∼11 Gyr is responsible for producing ∼95 per cent of the total stellar mass density observed locally, with half of that being assembled in 2 Gyr between z = 1.2 and 2.2, and the other half in 8 Gyr (since z < 1.2). If the star formation rate density continues to decline with time in the same way as seen in the past ∼11 Gyr, then the stellar mass density of the Universe will reach a maximum which is only 5 per cent higher than the present-day value.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eab9787e3cddfe79a89bea2ba27f7785bb1e14bc

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THE GRISM LENS-AMPLIFIED SURVEY FROM SPACE (GLASS). I. SURVEY OVERVIEW AND FIRST DATA RELEASE (2015, methodology): “GLASS’s target sensitivity is an order of magnitude improvement over previous studies of emission lines in cluster galaxies (Sobral et al. 2013).”
THE AVERAGE STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES IN DARK MATTER HALOS FROM z = 0–8 (2012, unknown): “…FIR 0.389 - 9 deg2 I Smoľcić et al. (2009) 0.2− 1.3 1.4 GHz 2 deg2 I Shim et al. (2009) 0.7− 1.9 Hα 0.029 deg2 I Tadaki et al. (2011) 2.2 Hα 0.0156 deg2 I Sobral et al. (2013) 0.4-2.3 Hα 0.016-1.7 deg2 I Magnelli et al. (2011) 1.3-2.3 IR 0.0786 deg2 I Karim et al. (2011) 0.2− 3 1.4 GHz 2…”
Spectroscopy of superluminous supernova host galaxies. A preference of hydrogen-poor events for extreme emission line galaxies (2014, background): “Distant EELGs have hitherto been discovered with a variety of methods, including deep spectroscopic surveys (e.g. Atek et al. 2011; Amorı́n et al. 2014a,b), narrow-band imaging (Sobral et al. 2013) or through colour-selection criteria (Cardamone et al. 2009; van der Wel et al. 2011).”
Wide-Field InfrarRed Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets WFIRST-AFTA 2015 Report (2015, background): “(2013) data; this assumption could prove pessimistic, though extrapolation of a fixed luminosity function to z = 2.2 gives reasonable agreement with the measurements of Sobral et al. (2013) at this redshift.”
A unified multiwavelength model of galaxy formation (2015, background): “26 are based on a variety of SFR tracers: far-UV light (Cucciati et al. 2012; Oesch et al. 2012a), far-IR + far-UV luminosity (Burgarella et al. 2013),Hα emission (Sobral et al. 2013; Gunawardhana et al. 2013), and non-thermal radio emission (Karim et al. 2011).”
On the evolution and environmental dependence of the star formation rate versus stellar mass relation since z ∼ 2 (2013, methodology): “In this paper, in order to make a fair comparison between cluster and field samples at different redshifts, we use the above one-colour method for all Hα emitters (including MAHALO and HiZELS samples).”
THE COSMIC BPT DIAGRAM: CONFRONTING THEORY WITH OBSERVATIONS (2013, background): “…power source is required for measuring the star-formation history of galaxies (e.g., Madau et al. 1996; Lilly et al. 1996; Hopkins & Beacom 2006; Sobral et al. 2013, and many others), studying the main-sequence for star-forming galaxies (Noeske et al. 2007), understanding the…”
The KMOS Redshift One Spectroscopic Survey (KROSS):dynamical properties, gas and dark matter fractions of typical z~1 star-forming galaxies (2016, methodology): “3: HiZELS, Sobral et al. (2013a).”
THE FMOS-COSMOS SURVEY OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT z ∼ 1.6. I. Hα-BASED STAR FORMATION RATES AND DUST EXTINCTION (2013, methodology): “…been made to detect Hα in the near-IR with narrow-band imaging or grism spectroscopy (e.g., Villar et al. 2008; Shim et al. 2009; Ly et al. 2011; Sobral et al. 2013), but new ground-based near-IR instruments (Subaru/Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS), Keck/MOSFIRE, the Very Large Telescope…”
Observational probes of cosmic acceleration (2012, methodology): “…primary mission, but the forecasts in Green et al. (2012), which are based on the Euclid instrument sensitivity of Laureijs et al. (2011) and the Hα luminosity function and galaxy bias measurements of Sobral et al. (2013) and Geach et al. (2012), imply that Euclid will reach nP < 0.5 at z > 1.2.”
Identification of the brightest Lyα emitters at z = 6.6 : Implications for the evolution of the luminosity function in the reionization era (2015, methodology): “By comparing the magnitudes, we exclude the two brightest candidates (NB921 ∼ 21.5), because they are completely undetected in the data from Sobral et al. (2013).”
A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, methodology): “So14 observes Hα emission from 1742, 637, 515, and 807 galaxies at z ∼ Evolution of the Star-forming Main Sequence 33 0.40, 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23, respectively, in the COSMOS and UDS fields as part of the High Redshift Emission Line Survey (HiZELS; Sobral et al. 2013).”