A Search for Lyman Break Galaxies in the CDF-S Using Swift UVOT

Abstract

(Abridged) While the Swift satellite is primarily designed to study gamma-ray bursts, its ultraviolet and optical imaging and spectroscopy capabilities are also being used for a variety of scientific programs. In this study, we use the UV/Optical Telescope (UVOT) instrument aboard Swift to discover 0.5<z<2 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). UVOT has covered ~266 arcmin^2 at >60ks exposure time, achieving a limiting magnitude of u<24.5, in the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S). Applying UVOT near-ultraviolet color selection, we select 50 UV-dropouts from this UVOT CDF-S data. We match the selected sources with available multiwavelength data from GOODS-South, MUSYC, and COMBO-17 to characterize the spectral energy distributions for these galaxies and determine stellar masses, star formation rates (SFRs), and dust attenuations. We compare these properties for LBGs selected in this paper versus z~3 LBGs and other CDF-S galaxies in the same redshift range (0.5<z<2), identified using photometric redshift techniques. The z~1 LBGs have slightly lower stellar masses compared to z~3 LBGs and slightly higher stellar masses compared to the z~1 CDF-S galaxies. Similarly, our sample of z~1 LBGs has SFRs (derived using both ultraviolet and infrared data, where available) nearly an order of magnitude lower than z~3 LBGs but slightly higher than the comparison z~1 sample of CDF-S galaxies. We find that our z~1 UV-dropouts have A_FUV higher than z~3 LBGs, but is similar to the distribution of dust attenuations in the other CDF-S galaxies. Using the GOODS-South multiwavelength catalog of galaxies, we simulate a larger and fainter sample of LBGs to compare their properties with those of the UVOT-selected LBG sample. We conclude that UVOT can be useful for finding and studying the bright end of 0.5<z<2.0 LBGs.

18 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by ApJ

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• Stellar Populations of Lyman Break Galaxies at z=1-3 in the HST/WFC3 Early Release Science Observations
• The Stellar Population and Star Formation Rates of z~1.5-1.6 [O II] Emitting Galaxies Selected from Narrow-Band Emission-Line Surveys
• Lyman-Break Galaxies at $z\sim 3$ in the Subaru Deep Field: Luminosity Function, Clustering and [OIII] Emission
• The UV to FIR spectral energy distribution of star-forming galaxies in the redshift desert
• Lyman break and UV-selected galaxies at z ~ 1: II. PACS-100um/160um FIR detections
• X-ray stacking of Lyman break galaxies in the 4\,Ms CDF-S - X-ray luminosities and star formation rates across cosmic time
• SED-inferred properties and morphology of Lyman-break galaxies at $z\sim 1$ in the CDF-S
• Lyman break and UV-selected galaxies at $z\sim 1$ I. Stellar populations from ALHAMBRA survey
• Lyman-alpha at Cosmic Noon I: Ly-alpha Spectral Type Selection of z ~ 2-3 Lyman Break Galaxies with Broadband Imaging
• Luminous star-forming galaxies in the SDSS-GALEX database