Bright Lyα emitters at z ~ 9: Constraints on the LF from HizELS

Journal article

New results are presented, as part of the Hi-z Emission Line Survey (HizELS), from the largest area survey to date (1.4 deg 2) for Lyα emitters (LAEs) at z ~ 9. The survey, which is primarily targeting Hα emitters at z < 3, uses the Wide Field CAMera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and a custom narrow-band filter in the J band and reaches a Lyα luminosity limit of ~10 43.8ergs -1 over a co-moving volume of 1.12 × 10 6 Mpc 3 at z = 8.96 ± 0.06. Only two candidates were found out of 1517 line emitters and those were rejected as LAEs after follow-up observations. The limit on the space density of bright LAEs is improved by three orders of magnitude, consistent with suppression of the bright end of the Lyα luminosity function beyond z ~ 6. Combined with upper limits from smaller but deeper surveys, this rules out some of the most extreme models for high-redshift LAEs. The potential contamination of future narrow-band Lyα surveys at z > 7 by Galactic brown dwarf stars is also examined, leading to the conclusion that such contamination may well be significant for searches at 7.7 < z < 8.0, 9.1 < z < 9.5 and 11.7 < z < 12.2. © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 RAS.

Authors: Sobral, D; Best, P; Geach, J; Smail, I; Kurk, J

• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
• Volume: 398
• Issue: 1
• Publication date: 2009-09-01
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2009.00712.x
• ISSN: 1745-3933
• Language: English
• Keywords: Galaxies: evolution; Galaxies: high-redshift; Cosmology: observations; Galaxies: luminosity function, mass function