A Comprehensive Study of Ly$\alpha$ Emission in the High-redshift Galaxy Population

Abstract

We present an exhaustive census of Lyman alpha (Ly$\alpha$) emission in the general galaxy population at $3<z<4.6$. We use the Michigan/Magellan Fiber System (M2FS) spectrograph to study a stellar mass (M${}_{\ast }$) selected sample of 625 galaxies homogeneously distributed in the range $7.6<\log{\mbox{M$_*$/M$_{\odot}$}}<10.6$. Our sample is selected from the 3D-HST/CANDELS survey, which provides the complementary data to estimate Ly$\alpha$ equivalent widths ($W_{Ly\alpha }$) and escape fractions ($f_{esc}$) for our galaxies. We find both quantities to anti-correlate with M${}_{\ast }$, star-formation rate (SFR), UV luminosity, and UV slope ($\beta$). We then model the $W_{Ly\alpha }$ distribution as a function of M${}_{UV}$ and $\beta$ using a Bayesian approach. Based on our model and matching the properties of typical Lyman break galaxy (LBG) selections, we conclude that the $W_{Ly\alpha }$ distribution in such samples is heavily dependent on the limiting M${}_{UV}$ of the survey. Regarding narrowband surveys, we find their $W_{Ly\alpha }$ selections to bias samples toward low M${}_{\ast }$, while their line-flux limitations preferentially leave out low-SFR galaxies. We can also use our model to predict the fraction of Ly$\alpha$-emitting LBGs at $4⩽z⩽7$. We show that reported drops in the Ly$\alpha$ fraction at $z⩾6$, usually attributed to the rapidly increasing neutral gas fraction of the universe, can also be explained by survey M${}_{UV}$ incompleteness. This result does not dismiss reionization occurring at $z\sim 7$, but highlights that current data is not inconsistent with this process taking place at $z>7$.

Accepted for publication in ApJ; Figure 3 updated

References in corpus (31)

• 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
• UV Luminosity Functions at redshifts z~4 to z~10: 10000 Galaxies from HST Legacy Fields
• An ultra-deep near-infrared spectrum of a compact quiescent galaxy at z=2.2
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• Cosmic Reionization and Early Star-Forming Galaxies: A Joint Analysis of New Constraints from Planck and Hubble Space Telescope
• Combined CO & Dust Scaling Relations of Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions with Cosmic Time, Specific Star Formation Rate and Stellar Mass
• The stellar mass assembly of galaxies from z=0 to z=4. Analysis of a sample selected in the rest-frame near-infrared with Spitzer
• UV Luminosity Functions at z~4, 5, and 6 from the HUDF and other Deep HST ACS Fields: Evolution and Star Formation History
• The Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS). IV. Evolution of Lya Emitters from z=3.1 to 5.7 in the 1 deg^2 Field: Luminosity Functions and AGN
• 3D Lyman-alpha radiation transfer. I. Understanding Lyman-alpha line profile morphologies
• The End of the Reionization Epoch Probed by Ly-alpha Emitters at z=6.5 in the Subaru Deep Field
• Ly-alpha Emission-Line Galaxies at z = 3.1 in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South
• The Relation Between SFR and Stellar Mass for Galaxies at 3.5 $\le z\le$ 6.5 in CANDELS
• The mass evolution of the first galaxies: stellar mass functions and star formation rates at $4<z<7$ in the CANDELS GOODS-South field
• Rapid Decline of Lyman-alpha Emission Toward the Reionization Era
• Diffuse Lyman-alpha Halos around Galaxies at z=2.2-6.6: Implications for Galaxy Formation and Cosmic Reionization
• The Lyman alpha Reference Sample: Extended Lyman alpha Halos Produced at Low Dust Content
• The VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey (VUDS): fast increase of the fraction of strong Lyman alpha emitters from z=2 to z=6
• The Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC): Deep Near-Infrared Imaging and the Selection of Distant Galaxies
• The CALYMHA survey: Lya luminosity function and global escape fraction of Lya photons at z=2.23
• The HETDEX Pilot Survey V: The Physical Origin of Lyman-alpha Emitters Probed by Near-infrared Spectroscopy
• The Rest-Frame Optical Spectroscopic Properties of Ly$\alpha$-Emitters at $z\sim 2.5$: The Physical Origins of Strong Ly$\alpha$ Emission
• Lyman alpha emission in high-redshift galaxies
• Constraints on Physical Properties of z~6 Galaxies Using Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations
• The physical properties of Lyalpha emitting galaxies: not just primeval galaxies?
• From Mirrors to Windows: Lyman-Alpha Radiative Transfer in a Very Clumpy Medium
• Confirmation of a Steep Luminosity Function for Lyman-alpha Emitters at z = 5.7: A Major Component of Reionization
• Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting of HETDEX Pilot Survey Lyman-alpha Emitters in COSMOS and GOODS-N
• HST Emission Line Galaxies at z ~ 2: The Ly-alpha Escape Fraction
• A Plethora of AGN Among Lyman Alpha Galaxies at Low Redshift

Cited by in corpus (31)

• Inferences on the Timeline of Reionization at z~8 From the KMOS Lens-Amplified Spectroscopic Survey
• The REQUIEM Survey I: A Search for Extended Ly-Alpha Nebular Emission Around 31 z>5.7 Quasars
• The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey X. Ly$\alpha$ Equivalent Widths at $2.9<z<6.6$
• Simulating the diversity of shapes of the Lyman-$\alpha$ line
• The evolution of rest-frame UV properties, Lya EWs and the SFR-Stellar mass relation at z~2-6 for SC4K LAEs
• HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1: 220K Sources Including Over 50K Lyman Alpha Emitters from an Untargeted Wide-area Spectroscopic Survey
• A Magellan M2FS Spectroscopic Survey of Galaxies at 5.5<z<6.8: Program Overview and a Sample of the Brightest Lyman-alpha Emitters
• The Faint Host Galaxies of C IV Absorbers at z > 5
• Rest-frame UV Properties of Luminous Strong Gravitationally Lensed Ly$\alpha$ Emitters from the BELLS GALLERY Survey
• The cosmic web in Lyman-alpha emission
• Lyman-Alpha Escape from Low-Mass, Compact, High-Redshift Galaxies
• Effects of self-consistent rest-ultraviolet colours in semi-empirical galaxy formation models
• ODIN: Improved Narrowband Ly$\alpha$ Emitter Selection Techniques for $z$ = 2.4, 3.1, and 4.5
• Correlations between H$\alpha$ Equivalent Width and Galaxy Properties at $z=0.47$: Physical or Selection-driven?
• Metal content of the circumgalactic medium around star-forming galaxies at z $\sim$ 2.6 as revealed by the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey
• Stellar Populations of Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies in the HETDEX Survey I: An Analysis of LAEs in the GOODS-N Field
• Mapping reionization bubbles in the JWST era I: empirical edge detection with Lyman alpha emission from galaxies
• Introducing the Texas Euclid Survey for Lyman Alpha (TESLA) Survey: Initial Study Correlating Galaxy Properties to Lyman-Alpha Emission
• A survey of Ly$\alpha$ emission around Damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers at $z\approx 2$ with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager
• The environments and hosts of metal absorption at z>5
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The effect of stellar mass and halo mass on the assembly histories of satellite galaxies
• The Hα Luminosity Function of Galaxies at z {\sim} 4.5
• Detecting galaxy-21-cm cross-correlation during reionization
• Void Probability Function of Simulated Surveys of high-redshift Lyman-Alpha Emitters
• Identifying Lyα emitter candidates with Random Forest: learning from galaxies in CANDELS survey
• Are Lyα emitters segregated in protoclusters regions?
• Lyman-alpha at Cosmic Noon I: Ly-alpha Spectral Type Selection of z ~ 2-3 Lyman Break Galaxies with Broadband Imaging
• A Search for Lensed Lyman-Alpha Emitters within the Early HETDEX Data Set
• HETDEX Public Data Release 1: Source Catalog 2 and Data Cubes from ~90 sq deg of Integral-Field Optical Spectroscopy
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: How the stellar populations of passive central galaxies depend on stellar and halo mass
• Far-infrared observations of dust in Ly$\alpha$ emitters at z=2-6