A search for Population III galaxies in CLASH. I. Singly-imaged candidates at high redshift
arXiv:1411.5691 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/804/1/13
Abstract
Population III galaxies are predicted to exist at high redshifts and may be rendered sufficiently bright for detection with current telescopes when gravitationally lensed by a foreground galaxy cluster. Population III galaxies that exhibit strong Lya emission should furthermore be identifiable from broadband photometry because of their unusual colors. Here, we report on a search for such objects at z > 6 in the imaging data from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), covering 25 galaxy clusters in 16 filters. Our selection algorithm returns five singly-imaged candidates with Lya-like color signatures, for which ground-based spectroscopy with current 8-10 m class telescopes should be able to test the predicted strength of the Lya line. None of these five objects have been included in previous CLASH compilations of high-redshift galaxy candidates. However, when large grids of spectral synthesis models are applied to the study of these objects, we find that only two of these candidates are significantly better fitted by Population III models than by more mundane, low-metallicity stellar populations.
18 pages, 10 figures, accepted by ApJ
References in corpus (7)
- A Bayesian approach to strong lensing modelling of galaxy clusters
- Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: I. Detection, Multiband Photometry, Photometric Redshifts, and Morphology
- Population III stars: hidden or disappeared ?
- Star Formation in the First Galaxies I: Collapse Delayed by Lyman-Werner Radiation
- Studying reionization with the next generation of Ly-alpha emitter surveys
- Effect of Intergalactic Medium on the Observability of Lyman Alpha Emitters during Cosmic Reionization
- Continuum Emission by Cooling Clouds