An Observational Pursuit for Population III Stars in a Ly_alpha Emitter at z=6.33 through HeII Emission

Abstract

We present a very deep near-infrared spectroscopic observation of a strong Ly_alpha emitter at z=6.33, SDF J132440.6+273607, which we used to search for HeII 1640. This emission line is expected if the target hosts a significant number of population III stars. Even after 42 ksec of integration with the Subaru/OHS spectrograph, no emission-line features are detected in the JH band, which confirms that SDF J132440.6+273607 is neither an active galactic nucleus nor a low-$z$ emission-line object. We obtained a 2sigma upper-limit of 9.06e-18 ergs/s/cm^2 on the HeII 1640 emission line flux, which corresponds to a luminosity of 4.11e42 ergs/s. This upper-limit on the HeII 1640 luminosity implies that the upper limit on population III star-formation rate is in the range 4.9--41.2 M_sun/yr if population III stars suffer no mass loss, and in the range 1.8--13.2 M_sun/yr if strong mass loss is present. The non-detection of HeII in SDF J132440.6+273607 at z=6.33 may thus disfavor weak feedback models for population III stars.

13 pages, 3 figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (37)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Preliminary Maps and Basic Results
• The Nucleosynthetic Signature of Population III
• The Formation of the First Star in the Universe
• The Formation of the First Stars. I. The Primordial Star Forming Cloud
• On the properties of massive Population III stars and metal-free stellar populations
• Forming the First Stars in the Universe: The Fragmentation of Primordial Gas
• The transition from Population III to normal galaxies: Ly-a and HeII 1640 emission and the ionising properties of high redshift starburst galaxies
• Generic Spectrum and Ionization Efficiency of a Heavy Initial Mass Function for the First Stars
• Formation of the First Stars by Accretion
• On the Initial Mass Function of Population III Stars
• A Redshift z = 6.56 Galaxy Behind the Cluster Abell 370
• Zero-Metallicity Stars and the Effects of the First Stars on Reionization
• Signatures of Stellar Reionization of the Universe
• The Subaru Deep Field Project: Lyman$\alpha$ Emitters at Redshift of 6.6
• Early Reionization by the First Galaxies
• The Detectability of the First Stars and Their Cluster Enrichment Signatures
• The Discovery of Two Lyman$\alpha$ Emitters Beyond Redshift 6 in the Subaru Deep Field
• IRTS observation of the near-infrared extragalactic background light
• The Contribution of the First Stars to the Cosmic Infrared Background
• The Subaru Deep Field: The Optical Imaging Data
• Current Performance and On-Going Improvements of the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope
• The Detectability of High Redshift Lyman Alpha Emission Lines Prior to the Reionization of the Universe
• The Imprint of the Cosmic Dark Ages on the Near Infrared Background
• The Cosmic Infrared Background at 1.25 microns and 2.2 microns using DIRBE and 2MASS: a contribution not due to galaxies ?
• Spectroscopic Properties of the z=4.5 Lyman-alpha Emitters
• Detection of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 and 3.5 microns Using DIRBE Observations
• A Luminous Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxy at Redshift z=6.535: Discovery and Spectroscopic Confirmation
• HeII Recombination Lines From the First Luminous Objects
• A Galaxy at z = 6.545 and Constraints on the Epoch of Reionization
• Cosmological Effects of the First Stars: Evolving Spectra of Population III
• CISCO: Cooled Infrared Spectrograph and Camera for OHS on the Subaru Telescope
• A deep, narrow J-band search for proto-galactic Lyman Alpha emission at redshifts z~9
• A Lyman alpha emitter at z = 6.5 found with slitless spectroscopy
• OHS: OH-airglow Suppressor for the Subaru Telescope
• A Strong Lyman-alpha Emitter at z=6.33 in the Subaru Deep Field Selected as an i' Dropout
• Early Enrichment of Quasars by First Stars
• The effects of population III stars on the chemical and photometrical evolution of ellipticals

Cited by in corpus (28)

• The First Galaxies
• The spectral evolution of the first galaxies. I. James Webb Space Telescope detection limits and color criteria for population III galaxies
• Population III stars: hidden or disappeared ?
• SILVERRUSH. III. Deep Optical and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for Lya and UV-Nebular Lines of Bright Lya Emitters at z=6-7
• Metal-Free Gas Supply at the Edge of Reionization: Late-Epoch Population III Star Formation
• Significant primordial star formation at redshifts z ~ 3-4
• The First Galaxies: Signatures of the Initial Starburst
• HeII emitters in the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: PopIII star formation or peculiar stellar populations in galaxies at 2<z<4.6?
• The physical properties of Lyalpha emitting galaxies: not just primeval galaxies?
• Spitzer Constraints on the z=6.56 Galaxy Lensed by Abell 370
• The Discovery of a Large Lyman-alpha+HeII Nebula at z~1.67: A Candidate Low Metallicity Region?
• A photometric survey for Lyalpha-HeII dual emitters: Searching for Population III stars in high-redshift galaxies
• A Ly-alpha Emitter with an Extremely Large Rest-frame Equivalent Width of ~900A at z=6.5: A Candidate of Population III-dominated Galaxy?
• A tale of two sites -- II: Inferring the properties of minihalo-hosted galaxies with upcoming 21-cm interferometers
• Ly-alpha emitters in the GOODS-S field: a powerful pure nebular SED with N IV] emission at z=5.563
• Lyman alpha Luminosity Functions at Redshift z = 4.5
• Probing Population III Stars in Galaxy IOK-1 at z = 6.96 through He II Emission
• Ly$\alpha$ Emitters with Very Large Ly$\alpha$ Equivalent Widths, EW${}_0$(Ly$\alpha$) $\simeq 200-400$ Å, at $z\sim 2$
• Deep rest-frame far-UV spectroscopy of the giant Lyman-alpha emitter 'Himiko'
• First HETDEX Spectroscopic Determinations of Ly$\alpha$ and UV Luminosity Functions at $z=2-3$: Bridging a Gap Between Faint AGN and Bright Galaxies
• Population III Star Clusters in the Reionized Universe
• Spectroscopy of i-Dropout Galaxies with an NB921-Band Depression in the Subaru Deep Field
• High-redshift Ly alpha emitters with a large equivalent width: Properties of i-dropout galaxies with an NB921-band depression in the Subaru Deep Field
• CHORUS. I. Cosmic HydrOgen Reionization Unveiled with Subaru: Overview
• Constraining Very High Mass Population III Stars through He II Emission in Galaxy BDF-521 at z = 7.01
• The search for Population III stars
• Revealing the formation histories of the first stars with the cosmic near-infrared background
• Star Forming Galaxies at z > 5