[OIII] emission line as a tracer of star-forming galaxies at high redshifts: Comparison between H$\alpha$ and [OIII] emitters at $z$=2.23 in HiZELS

Abstract

We investigate the properties of $z$=2.23 H$\alpha$ and [OIII]$\lambda$5007 emitters using the narrow-band-selected samples obtained from the High-$z$ Emission Line Survey (HiZELS: Sobral et al. 2013). We construct two samples of the H$\alpha$ and [OIII] emitters and compare their integrated physical properties. We find that the distribution of stellar masses, dust extinction, star formation rates (SFRs), and specific SFRs, is not statistically different between the two samples. When we separate the full galaxy sample into three subsamples according to the detections of the H$\alpha$ and/or [OIII] emission lines, most of the sources detected with both H$\alpha$ and [OIII] show $\log (\mathrm{sSF}{\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{UV}})$$\gtrsim$-9.5. The comparison of the three subsamples suggests that sources with strong [OIII] line emission tend to have the highest star-forming activity out all galaxies that we study. We argue that the [OIII] emission line can be used as a tracer of star-forming galaxies at high redshift, and that it is especially useful to investigate star-forming galaxies at $z$$>$3, for which H$\alpha$ emission is no longer observable from the ground.

10 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (19)

• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• Star Formation in AEGIS Field Galaxies since z=1.1 : The Dominance of Gradually Declining Star Formation, and the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• COSMOS Photometric Redshifts with 30-bands for 2-deg2
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• Constraining the Low-Mass Slope of the Star Formation Sequence at 0.5<z<2.5
• Strong Nebular Line Ratios in the Spectra of z~2-3 Star-forming Galaxies: First Results from KBSS-MOSFIRE
• H-alpha Observations of a Large Sample of Galaxies at z~2: Implications for Star Formation in High Redshift Galaxies
• The MOSDEF Survey: Excitation Properties of $z\sim 2.3$ Star-forming Galaxies
• Optical spectroscopy and X-ray detections of a sample of quasars and AGN selected in the mid-infrared from two Spitzer wide-area surveys
• Spitzer's Contribution to the AGN Population
• HiZELS: a high redshift survey of H-alpha emitters. I: the cosmic star-formation rate and clustering at z=2.23
• Evolution of the H$\beta$+[OIII] and [OII] luminosity functions and the [OII] star-formation history of the Universe up to $z$ ~ 5 from HiZELS
• A relationship between specific star formation rate and metallicity gradient within z=1 galaxies from KMOS-HiZELS
• An early phase of environmental effects on galaxy properties unveiled by near-infrared spectroscopy of protocluster galaxies at z>2
• Hubble Space Telescope Grism Spectroscopy of Extreme Starbursts Across Cosmic Time: The Role of Dwarf Galaxies in the Star Formation History of the Universe
• The Properties of Hα Emission-Line Galaxies at z = 2.24
• [OIII] emitters in the field of the MRC 0316-257 protocluster

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The FMOS-COSMOS survey of star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 1.6$ VI: Redshift and emission-line catalog and basic properties of star-forming galaxies
• LeMMINGs. III. The e-MERLIN Legacy Survey of the Palomar sample. Exploring the origin of nuclear radio emission in active and inactive galaxies through the [O III] -- radio connection
• SFR estimations from z=0 to z=0.9 -- A comparison of SFR calibrators for star-forming galaxies
• The interstellar medium in [OIII]-selected star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 3.2$
• The local universe in the era of large surveys. I. Spectral classification of S0 galaxies
• Galaxies of the $z\sim 2$ Universe. I. Grism-Selected Rest-Frame Optical Emission Line Galaxies
• The local Universe in the era of large surveys -- II. Multi-wavelength characterisation of activity in nearby S0 galaxies