A Lyman Break Galaxy Candidate at z~9

Abstract

We report the discovery of a z~9 Lyman Break Galaxy (LBG) candidate, selected from the NICMOS Parallel Imaging Survey as a J-dropout with J110 - H160 = 1.7. Spitzer/IRAC photometry reveals that the galaxy has a blue H160 - 3.6 um color, and a spectral break between 3.6 and 4.5 um. We interpret this break as the Balmer break, and derive a best-fit photometric redshift of z~9. We use Monte Carlo simulations to test the significance of this photometric redshift, and show a 96% probability of z>7. We estimate a lower limit to the comoving number density of such galaxies at z~9 of phi > 3.8 x 10^{-6} Mpc^{-3}. If the high redshift of this galaxy is confirmed, this will indicate that the luminous end of the rest-frame UV luminosity function has not evolved substantially from z~ 9 to z~3. Still, some small degeneracy remains between this z~9 model and models at z~2-3; deep optical imaging (reaching I ~ 29 AB) can rule out the lower-z models.

Accepted to ApJ Letters

References in corpus (37)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• Detailed Structural Decomposition of Galaxy Images
• Evolutionary models for cool brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets. The case of HD 20945
• Lyman Break Galaxies at z>4 and the Evolution of the UV Luminosity Density at High Redshift
• UV Luminosity Functions at z~4, 5, and 6 from the HUDF and other Deep HST ACS Fields: Evolution and Star Formation History
• Spitzer Space Telescope study of disks in the young $\sigma$ Orionis cluster
• IRAC Mid-Infrared Imaging of the Hubble Deep Field South: Star Formation Histories and Stellar Masses of Red Galaxies at z>2
• Galaxies at z~6: The UV Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density from 506 UDF, UDF-Ps, and GOODS i-dropouts
• Luminosity functions of Lyman-alpha emitters at z=6.5, and z=5.7: evidence against reionization at z=6
• The Direct Detection of Lyman-Continuum Emission from Star-forming Galaxies at z~3
• Ly Alpha Emitters at z=5.7 in the Subaru Deep Field
• The Star Formation Rate of the Universe at z~6 from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS Observations of T Dwarfs: Brown Dwarf Multiplicity and New Probes of the L/T Transition
• Spitzer/IRAC Photometry of M, L, and T Dwarfs
• Lyman Break Galaxies and the Star Formation Rate of the Universe at z~6
• New Constraints on the Lyman Continuum Escape Fraction at z~1.3
• A Keck Survey for Gravitationally-Lensed Lyman-alpha Emitters in the Redshift Range 8.5 < z < 10.4: New Constraints on the Contribution of Low Luminosity Sources to Cosmic Reionization
• Evidence for a Massive Post-Starburst Galaxy at z ~ 6.5
• The Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories of Galaxies at z ~ 6: Constraints from Spitzer Observations in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey
• The Stellar Mass Density at z~6 from Spitzer Imaging of i-drop Galaxies
• A Hubble & Spitzer Space Telescope Survey for Gravitationally-Lensed Galaxies: Further Evidence for a Significant Population of Low Luminosity Galaxies beyond Redshift Seven
• The Unusual Infrared Object HDF-N J123656.3+621322
• A novel image reconstruction method applied to deep Hubble Space Telescope Images
• A New Measurement of the Stellar Mass Density at z~5: Implications for the Sources of Cosmic Reionization
• Constraints on z~10 Galaxies from the Deepest HST NICMOS Fields
• Constraining the population of 6 < z < 10 star-forming galaxies with deep near-IR images of lensing clusters
• Differential Evolution of the UV Luminosity Function of Lyman Break Galaxies from z~5 to 3
• An HST Search for Lyman Continuum Emission From Galaxies at z=1.1--1.4
• Luminosity Functions of Lyman-Break Galaxies at z~4 and 5 in the Subaru Deep Field
• Discovery of Massive Evolved Galaxies at z > 3 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• The Density and Spectral Energy Distributions of Red Galaxies at z~3.7
• Galaxy Morphology from NICMOS Parallel Imaging
• On the Stellar Populations in Faint Red Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• A search for Lyman Break Galaxies at z>8 in the NICMOS Parallel Imaging Survey
• Near-Infrared Properties of Faint X-rays Sources from NICMOS Imaging in the Chandra Deep Fields
• The Bright Ages Survey. I. Imaging Data

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Large Area Survey for z=7 Galaxies in SDF and GOODS-N: Implications for Galaxy Formation and Cosmic Reionization
• On the physical properties of z~6-8 galaxies
• Focusing Cosmic Telescopes: Exploring Redshift z~5-6 Galaxies with the Bullet Cluster 1E0657-56
• Expanded Search for z~10 Galaxies from HUDF09, ERS, and CANDELS Data: Evidence for Accelerated Evolution at z>8?
• Lyman Alpha Emitters at z=7 in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey Field: Photometric Candidates and Luminosity Function
• Spectroscopy of luminous z>7 galaxy candidates and sources of contamination in z>7 galaxy searches
• Global Star Formation Rate Density over 0.7<z<1.9
• Observing the first galaxies
• Estimating Luminosity Function Constraints from High-Redshift Galaxy Surveys
• First stars and the extragalactic background light: How recent gamma-ray observations constrain the early universe
• Using the Bullet Cluster as a Gravitational Telescope to Study z~7 Lyman Break Galaxies
• Lyman-Break Galaxies at $z\sim 3$ in the Subaru Deep Field: Luminosity Function, Clustering and [OIII] Emission
• Expanding the search for galaxies at z ~7-10 with new NICMOS Parallel Fields
• Real or Interloper? The Redshift Likelihoods of z>8 Galaxies in the HUDF12
• Reionization and feedback in overdense regions at high redshift
• The Taiwan ECDFS Near-Infrared Survey: Very Bright End of the Luminosity Function at z>7
• High redshift galaxy surveys