Ultra-faint high-redshift galaxies in the Frontier Fields

Abstract

By combining cosmological simulations with Frontier Fields project lens models we find that, in the most optimistic case, galaxies as faint as $m\approx 33-34$ (AB magnitude at $1.6\mu \mathrm{m}$) can be detected in the Frontier Fields. Such faint galaxies are hosted by dark matter halos of mass $\sim 10^9{M}_{\odot }$ and dominate the ionizing photon budget over currently observed bright galaxies, thus allowing for the first time the investigation of the dominant reionization sources. In addition, the observed number of these galaxies can be used to constrain the role of feedback in suppressing star formation in small halos: for example, if galaxy formation is suppressed in halos with circular velocity $v_c<50$ km s${}^{-1}$, galaxies fainter than $m=31$ should not be detected in the FFs.

5 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (3)

• UV Luminosity Functions at z~4, 5, and 6 from the HUDF and other Deep HST ACS Fields: Evolution and Star Formation History
• z~7-10 Galaxies behind Lensing Clusters: Contrast with Field Search Results
• Searching for the reionization sources

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• The Impact of Strong Gravitational Lensing on Observed Lyman-Break Galaxy Numbers at 4<z<8 in the GOODS and the XDF Blank Fields
• Accounting for Cosmic Variance in Studies of Gravitationally-Lensed High-Redshift Galaxies in the Hubble Frontier Field Clusters
• The Minimum Halo Mass for Star Formation at z = 6 - 8
• Impact of the turnover in the high-z galaxy luminosity function on the 21-cm signal during Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization
• Systematic search for lensed X-ray sources in the CLASH fields