Lyman-α Emitters in the context of hierarchical galaxy formation: predictions for VLT/MUSE surveys

Abstract

The VLT Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) integral-field spectrograph can detect Lyα emitters (LAE) in the redshift range $2.8\lesssim z\lesssim 6.7$ in a homogeneous way. Ongoing MUSE surveys will notably probe faint Lyα sources that are usually missed by current narrow-band surveys. We provide quantitative predictions for a typical wedding-cake observing strategy with MUSE based on mock catalogs generated with a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation coupled to numerical Lyα radiation transfer models in gas outflows. We expect $\approx$ 1500 bright LAEs ($F_{Ly\alpha }$ $\gtrsim$ $10^{-17}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$) in a typical Shallow Field (SF) survey carried over $\approx$ 100 arcmin${}^2$, and $\approx$ 2,000 sources as faint as $10^{-18}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$ in a Medium-Deep Field (MDF) survey over 10 arcmin${}^2$. In a typical Deep Field (DF) survey of 1 arcmin${}^2$, we predict that $\approx$ 500 extremely faint LAEs ($F_{Ly\alpha }$ $\gtrsim$ $4\times 10^{-19}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$) will be found. Our results suggest that faint Lyα sources contribute significantly to the cosmic Lyα luminosity and SFR budget. While the host halos of bright LAEs at z $\approx$ 3 and 6 have descendants with median masses of $2\times 10^{12}$ and $5\times 10^{13}$ $M_{\odot }$ respectively, the faintest sources detectable by MUSE at these redshifts are predicted to reside in halos which evolve into typical sub-$L^{\ast }$ and $L^{\ast }$ galaxy halos at z = 0. We expect typical DF and MDF surveys to uncover the building blocks of Milky Way-like objects, even probing the bulk of the stellar mass content of LAEs located in their progenitor halos at z $\approx$ 3.

18 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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