Spectroscopically Confirmed Lyman-Alpha Emitters from Redshift 5 to 7 Behind Ten Galaxy Cluster Lenses

Abstract

We present 36 spectroscopically confirmed intrinsically UV-faint Ly$\alpha$ emitting galaxies from follow-up observations with Keck/DEIMOS of gravitationally lensed high-redshift candidates. Candidates were selected to be between $5\lesssim z\lesssim 7$ from photometric data using \textit{HST} and \textit{Spitzer} imaging surveys. We used photometric redshift information to perform an integrated photometric redshift probability cut $>1\%$ between $5<z<7$ to construct a sample of 198 high-redshift objects. Our high-redshift sample spans intrinsic UV luminosities from a few $L^{\ast }$ down to $0.001L^{\ast }$. We identified 19 high-confidence detections of Ly$\alpha$ and an additional 17 likely detections. We divided our sample into lower-redshift ($z\sim 5.5$) and higher-redshift ($z\sim 6.5$) bins and ran Monte Carlo trials, incorporating the strength of the Ly$\alpha$ emission and the photometric redshift of the non-detections. Considering only objects where Ly$\alpha$ could be detected at EW(Ly$\alpha$)$>$25Å at $3\sigma$ at the fiducial depth of our survey, and only those galaxies with EW(Ly$\alpha$)$>$25Å as true LAEs, and finally, only objects with $m_{AB}<26.8$, we found the LAE fraction to be flat, or modestly increase from 0.26$\pm 0.04$ to 0.30$\pm 0.04$. These values relative to those for lower-redshift samples are consistent with a rising LAE fraction with redshift out to $z\sim 6$, but at $z\sim 6.5$ there is some tension between our results and results from surveys at intrinsically brighter luminosities. We conclude intrinsically fainter galaxies have Ly$\alpha$ emission, and there is a steep drop in the LAE fraction from our high-redshift sample at $z\sim 6.5$ and from similar galaxies at $z\sim 7.5$. This likely indicates we are witnessing the tail end of the epoch of reionization, as such a drop is not expected due to changes of intrinsic galaxy properties between these redshifts.

arXiv comment21 pages, 10 figures, submitted to ApJ

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