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Register a new userDiffuse Lyman-alpha Halos around Galaxies at z=2.2-6.6: Implications for Galaxy Formation and Cosmic Reionization
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We present diffuse Lyman-alpha halos (LAHs) identified in the composite Subaru narrowband images of 100-3600 Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) at z=2.2, 3.1, 3.7, 5.7, and 6.6. First, we carefully examine potential artifacts mimicking LAHs that include a large-scale point-spread function (PSF) made by instrumental and atmospheric effects. Based on our critical test with composite images of non-LAE samples whose narrowband-magnitude and source-size distributions are the same as our LAE samples, we confirm that no artifacts can produce a diffuse extended feature similar to our LAHs. After this test, we measure the scale lengths of exponential profile for the LAHs estimated from our z=2.2-6.6 LAE samples of L(Lyman-alpha) > 2 x 10^42 erg s^-1. We obtain the scale lengths of ~ 5-10 kpc at z=2.2-5.7, and find no evolution of scale lengths in this redshift range beyond our measurement uncertainties. Combining this result and the previously-known UV-continuum size evolution, we infer that the ratio of LAH to UV-continuum sizes is nearly constant at z=2.2-5.7. The scale length of our z=6.6 LAH is larger than 5-10 kpc just beyond the error bar, which is a hint that the scale lengths of LAHs would increase from z=5.7 to 6.6. If this increase is confirmed by future large surveys with significant improvements of statistical and systematical errors, this scale length change at z > 6 would be a signature of increasing fraction of neutral hydrogen scattering Lyman-alpha photons, due to cosmic reionization.
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We present statistical properties of diffuse Lyman-alpha halos (LAHs) around high-$z$ star-forming galaxies with large Subaru samples of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) at $z=2.2$. We make subsamples defined by the physical quantities of LAEs central Lyman-alpha luminosities, UV magnitudes, Lyman-alpha equivalent widths, and UV slopes, and investigate LAHs radial surface brightness (SB) profiles and scale lengths $r_n$ as a function of these physical quantities. We find that there exist prominent LAHs around LAEs with faint Lyman-alpha luminosities, bright UV luminosities, and small Lyman-alpha equivalent widths in cumulative radial Lyman-alpha SB profiles. We confirm this trend with the anti-correlation between $r_n$ and Lyman-alpha luminosities (equivalent widths) based on the Spearmans rank correlation coefficient that is $rho=-0.9$ ($-0.7$) corresponding to the $96%$ ($93%$) confidence level, although the correlation between $r_n$ and UV magnitudes is not clearly found in the rank correlation coefficient. Our results suggest that LAEs with properties similar to typical Lyman-break galaxies (with faint Lyman-alpha luminosities and small equivalent widths) possess more prominent LAHs. We investigate scenarios for the major physical origins of LAHs with our results, and find that the cold stream scenario is not preferred, due to the relatively small equivalent widths up to $77$AA in LAHs that include LAEs central components. There remain two possible scenarios of Lyman-alpha scattering in circum-galactic medium and satellite galaxies that cannot be tested with our observational data.
We present a pilot narrow-band survey of H-alpha emitters at z=2.2 in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North (GOODS-N) field with MOIRCS instrument on the Subaru telescope. The survey reached a 3 sigma limiting magnitude of 23.6 (NB209) which corresponds to a 3 sigma limiting line flux of 2.5 x 10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2 over a 56 arcmnin^2 contiguous area (excluding a shallower area). From this survey, we have identified 11 H-alpha emitters and one AGN at z=2.2 on the basis of narrow-band excesses and photometric redshifts. We obtained spectra for seven new objects among them, including one AGN, and an emission line above 3 sigma is detected from all of them. We have estimated star formation rates (SFR) and stellar masses (M_star) for individual galaxies. The average SFR and M_star is 27.8M_solar yr^-1 and 4.0 x 10^10M_solar, respectivly. Their specific star formation rates are inversely correlated with their stellar masses. Fitting to a Schechter function yields the H-alpha luminosity function with log L = 42.82, log phi = -2.78 and alpha = -1.37. The average star formation rate density in the survey volume is estimated to be 0.31M_solar yr^-1Mpc^-3 according to the Kennicutt relation between H-alpha luminosity and star formation rate. We compare our H-alpha emitters at z=2.2 in GOODS-N with narrow-band line emitters in other field and clusters to see their time evolution and environmental dependence. We find that the star formation activity is reduced rapidly from z=2.5 to z=0.8 in the cluster environment, while it is only moderately changed in the field environment. This result suggests that the timescale of galaxy formation is different among different environments, and the star forming activities in high density regions eventually overtake those in lower density regions as a consequence of galaxy formation bias at high redshifts.
Ly$alpha$ photons scattered by neutral hydrogen atoms in the circumgalactic media or produced in the halos of star-forming galaxies are expected to lead to extended Ly$alpha$ emission around galaxies. Such low surface brightness Ly$alpha$ halos (LAHs) have been detected by stacking Ly$alpha$ images of high-redshift star-forming galaxies. We study the origin of LAHs by performing radiative transfer modeling of nine $z=3.1$ Lyman-Alpha Emitters (LAEs) in a high resolution hydrodynamic cosmological galaxy formation simulation. We develop a method of computing the mean Ly$alpha$ surface brightness profile of each LAE by effectively integrating over many different observing directions. Without adjusting any parameters, our model yields an average Ly$alpha$ surface brightness profile in remarkable agreement with observations. We find that observed LAHs cannot be accounted for solely by photons originating from the central LAE and scattered to large radii by hydrogen atoms in the circumgalactic gas. Instead, Ly$alpha$ emission from regions in the outer halo is primarily responsible for producing the extended LAHs seen in observations, which potentially includes both star-forming and cooling radiation. With the limit on the star formation contribution set by the ultra-violet (UV) halo measurement, we find that cooling radiation can play an important role in forming the extended LAHs. We discuss the implications and caveats of such a picture.
We present results of our large-area survey for z-band dropout galaxies at z=7 in a 1568 arcmin^2 sky area covering the SDF and GOODS-N fields. Combining our ultra-deep Subaru/Suprime-Cam z- and y-band (lambda_eff=1um) images with legacy data of Subaru and HST, we have identified 22 bright z-dropout galaxies down to y=26, one of which has a spectroscopic redshift of z=6.96 determined from Lya emission. The z=7 luminosity function (LF) yields the best-fit Schechter parameters of phi*=0.69 +2.62/-0.55 x10^(-3) Mpc^(-3), Muv*=-20.10 +/-0.76 mag, and alpha=-1.72 +/-0.65, and indicates a decrease from z=6 at a >95% confidence level. This decrease is beyond the cosmic variance in our two fields, which is estimated to be a factor of <~2. We have found that the cosmic star formation rate density drops from the peak at z=2-3 to z=7 roughly by a factor of ~10 but not larger than ~100. A comparison with the reionization models suggests either that the Universe could not be totally ionized by only galaxies at z=7, or more likely that properties of galaxies at z=7 are different from those at low redshifts having, e.g., a larger escape fraction (>~0.2), and/or a flatter IMF. Our SDF z-dropout galaxies appear to form 60-Mpc long filamentary structures, and the z=6.96 galaxy with Lya emission is located at the center of an overdense region consisting of four UV bright dropout candidates, which might suggest an existence of a well-developed ionized bubble at z=7.
Using stacks of Ly-a images of 2128 Ly-a emitters (LAEs) and 24 protocluster UV-selected galaxies (LBGs) at z=3.1, we examine the surface brightness profiles of Ly-a haloes around high-z galaxies as a function of environment and UV luminosity. We find that the slopes of the Ly-a radial profiles become flatter as the Mpc-scale LAE surface densities increase, but they are almost independent of the central UV luminosities. The characteristic exponential scale lengths of the Ly-a haloes appear to be proportional to the square of the LAE surface densities (r(Lya) propto Sigma(LAE)^2). Including the diffuse, extended Ly-a haloes, the rest-frame Ly-a equivalent width of the LAEs in the densest regions approaches EW_0(Lya) ~ 200 A, the maximum value expected for young (< 10^7 yr) galaxies. This suggests that Ly-a photons formed via shock compression by gas outflows or cooling radiation by gravitational gas inflows may partly contribute to illuminate the Ly-a haloes; however, most of their Ly-a luminosity can be explained by photo-ionisation by ionising photons or scattering of Ly-a photons produced in HII regions in and around the central galaxies. Regardless of the source of Ly-a photons, if the Ly-a haloes trace the overall gaseous structure following the dark matter distributions, it is not surprising that the Ly-a spatial extents depend more strongly on the surrounding Mpc-scale environment than on the activities of the central galaxies.
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