DAzLE: The Dark Ages z (redshift) Lyman-alpha Explorer

Abstract

DAzLE is an near infrared narrowband differential imager being built by the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, in collaboration with the Anglo-Australian observatory. It is a special purpose instrument designed with a sole aim; the detection of redshifted Lyman-alpha emission from star forming galaxies at z>7. DAzLE will use pairs of high resolution (R=1000) narrowband filters to exploit low background `windows' in the near infrared sky emission spectrum. This will enable it to reach sensitivities of ~2E-21 W/m^2, thereby allowing the detection of z>7 galaxies with star formation rates as low as a few solar masses per year. The design of the instrument, and in particular the crucial narrowband filters, are presented. The predicted performance of DAzLE, including the sensitivity, volume coverage and expected number counts, is discussed. The current status of the DAzLE project, and its projected timeline, are also presented.

11 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Observational constraints on Cosmic Reionization
• Formation of z ~ 6 quasars from hierarchical galaxy mergers
• A galaxy at a redshift z = 6.96
• A Keck Survey for Gravitationally-Lensed Lyman-alpha Emitters in the Redshift Range 8.5 < z < 10.4: New Constraints on the Contribution of Low Luminosity Sources to Cosmic Reionization
• Radiative Transfer Modeling of Lyman Alpha Emitters. I. Statistics of Spectra and Luminosity
• The properties of Ly-alpha emitting galaxies in hierarchical galaxy formation models
• The Physical Properties and Detectability of Reionization-Epoch Galaxies
• GNOSIS: the first instrument to use fibre Bragg gratings for OH suppression
• The case for OH suppression at near-infrared wavelengths
• The Luminosity Function of Lyman alpha Emitters at Redshift z=7.7
• The Polarization of Scattered Lyman Alpha Radiation Around High-Redshift Galaxies
• ART^2 : Coupling Lyman-alpha Line and Multi-wavelength Continuum Radiative Transfer
• An Empirically-Calibrated Model For Interpreting the Evolution of Galaxies During the Reionization Era
• The clustering of Ly-alpha emitters in a LambdaCDM Universe
• A narrow-band search for Ly alpha emitting galaxies at z = 8.8
• ZEN2: A narrow J-band search for z~9 Lya emitting galaxies directed towards three lensing clusters
• A Magellan IMACS Spectroscopic Search for Lyman-Alpha Emitting Galaxies at Redshift 5.7
• On-sky characterisation of the VISTA NB118 narrow-band filters at 1.19 micron
• Photonic ring resonator filters for astronomical OH suppression
• Observations of the High Redshift Universe