A Low Lyman Continuum Escape Fraction of $<10\%$ for Extreme [OIII] Emitters in an Overdensity at z$\sim 3.5$

Abstract

Recent work has suggested extreme [OIII] emitting star-forming galaxies are important to reionization. Relatedly, [OIII]/[OII] has been put forward as an indirect estimator of the Lyman Continuum (LyC) escape fraction ($f_{esc}$) at $z\gtrsim 4.5$ when the opaque IGM renders LyC photons unobservable. Using deep archival U-band (VLT/VIMOS) imaging of a recently confirmed overdensity at $z\sim 3.5$ we calculate tight constraints on $f_{esc}$ for a sample (N=73) dominated by extreme [OIII] emitters. We find no Lyman Continuum signal ($f_{esc}^{rel}<6.3_{-0.7}^{+0.7}\%$ at $1\sigma$) in a deep U-band stack of our sample (31.98 mag at 1$\sigma$). This constraint is in agreement with recent studies of star-forming galaxies spanning $z\sim 1-4$ that have found very low average $f_{esc}$. Despite the galaxies in our study having an estimated average rest-frame EW([OIII]$\lambda 5007$)$\sim 400\mathring{A}$ and [OIII]/[OII]$\sim 4$ from composite SED-fitting, we find no LyC detection, which brings into question the potential of [OIII]/[OII] as an effective probe of the LyC--a majority of LyC emitters have [OIII]/[OII]$>3$, but we establish here that [OIII]/[OII]$>3$ does not guarantee significant LyC leakage for a population. Since even extreme star-forming galaxies are unable to produce the $f_{esc}\sim 10-15\%$ required by most theoretical calculations for star-forming galaxies to drive reionization, there must either be a rapid evolution of $f_{esc}$ between $z\sim 3.5$ and the Epoch of Reionization, or hitherto observationally unstudied sources (e.g. ultra-faint low-mass galaxies with $\log (M/M_{\odot })\sim 7-8.5$) must make an outsized contribution to reionization.

10 pages, 8 figures (key result in Figures 7, 8). Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Comments welcome

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