Plausible fluorescent Ly-alpha emitters around the z=3.1 QSO0420-388

Abstract

We report the results of a survey for fluorescent Ly-alpha emission carried out in the field surrounding the z=3.1 quasar QSO0420-388 using the FORS2 instrument on the VLT. We first review the properties expected for fluorescent Ly-alpha emitters, compared with those of other non-fluorescent Ly-alpha emitters. Our observational search detected 13 Ly-alpha sources sparsely sampling a volume of ~14000 comoving Mpc^3 around the quasar. The properties of these in terms of i) the line equivalent width, ii) the line profile and iii) the value of the surface brightness related to the distance from the quasar, all suggest that several of these may be plausibly fluorescent. Moreover, their number is in good agreement with the expectation from theoretical models. One of the best candidates for fluorescence is sufficiently far behind QSO0420-388 that it would imply that the quasar has been active for (at least) ~60 Myrs. Further studies on such objects will give information about proto-galactic clouds and on the radiative history (and beaming) of the high-redshift quasars.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 figures.Update to match the version published on ApJ 657, 135, 2007 March 1

References in corpus (25)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• Radiative Transfer in a Clumpy Universe: II. The Utraviolet Extragalactic Background
• Lyman Alpha Imaging of a Proto-Cluster Region at <z>=3.09
• The transition from Population III to normal galaxies: Ly-a and HeII 1640 emission and the ionising properties of high redshift starburst galaxies
• High-z Lyman-alpha Emitters. I. A Blank-Field Search for Objects Near Redshift z=3.4 in and around the Hubble Deep Field and the Hawaii Deep Field SSA22
• Damped Lyman alpha absorbers at high redshift -- large disks or galactic building blocks?
• The Age-Metallicity Relation of the Universe in Neutral Gas: The First 100 Damped Lya Systems
• The VLT-UVES survey for molecular hydrogen in high-redshift damped Lyman-alpha systems
• The Distribution of Metallicity in the IGM at z~2.5: OVI and CIV Absorption in the Spectra of 7 QSOs
• Cosmic Evolution of Quasar Clustering: Implications for the Host Haloes
• Fluorescent Ly-alpha emission from the high-redshift intergalactic medium
• Extended Ly-alpha emission from a damped Ly-alpha absorber at z = 1.93, and the relation between DLAs and Lyman-break galaxies
• Properties of Ly-alpha emitters around the radio galaxy MRC 0316-257
• Protogalactic Disk Models of Damped Lya Kinematics
• Imaging the Lyman-alpha Forest
• The Building the Bridge survey for z=3 Ly-alpha emitting galaxies I: method and first results
• Where is the Molecular Hydrogen in Damped Lyman-Alpha Absorbers?
• The Serendipitous Discovery of a Group or Cluster of young Galaxies at z=2.40 in Deep Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 Images
• Clustering around the radio-galaxy MRC0316-257 at z=3.14
• Possible Detection of Lyman-alpha Fluorescence from a Damped Lyman Alpha system at Redshift z=2.8
• A search for signatures of quasar evolution: Comparison of the shapes of the rest-frame optical/UV continua of quasars at z>3 and z~0.1
• Compact Lyman-alpha Emitting Candidates at z~2.4 in Deep Medium-band HST WFPC2 Images
• The Mysterious Absence of Neutral Hydrogen within One Mpc of a Luminous Quasar at Redshift 2.168
• Seeking the Ultraviolet Ionizing Background at z~3 with the Keck Telescope
• Fluorescent Lyman-alpha Emission from Gas Near a QSO at Redshift 4.28

Cited by in corpus (37)

• A cosmic web filament revealed in Lyman-alpha emission around a luminous high-redshift quasar
• The Physics of the Intergalactic Medium
• A Population of Faint Extended Line Emitters and the Host Galaxies of Optically Thick QSO Absorption Systems
• The Spectroscopic Properties of Lyα-Emitters at z $\approx$ 2.7: Escaping Gas and Photons from Faint Galaxies
• Detection of dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments fluorescently illuminated by a quasar at z=2.4
• Lyman-alpha Emission From Cosmic Structure I: Fluorescence
• The large and small scale properties of the intergalactic gas in the Slug Ly-alpha nebula revealed by MUSE HeII emission observations
• Quasars Probing Quasars IV: Joint Constraints on the Circumgalactic Medium from Absorption and Emission
• The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey X. Ly$\alpha$ Equivalent Widths at $2.9<z<6.6$
• Deep HeII and CIV Spectroscopy of a Giant Lyman alpha Nebula: Dense Compact Gas Clumps in the Circumgalactic Medium of a z~2 Quasar
• Mapping Neutral Hydrogen During Reionization with the Ly-alpha Emission from Quasar Ionization Fronts
• The imprint of inhomogeneous HeII reionization on the HI and HeII Ly-alpha forest
• The Polarization of Scattered Lyman Alpha Radiation Around High-Redshift Galaxies
• Filamentary Infall of Cold Gas and Escape of Lyman Alpha and Hydrogen Ionizing Radiation from an Interacting High-Redshift Galaxy
• The Stacked Lyman-Alpha Emission Profile from the Circum-Galactic Medium of z~2 Quasars
• 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?
• On the contribution of fluorescence to Ly$\alpha$ halos (LAHs) around star forming galaxies
• Constraints on Hyperluminous QSO Lifetimes via Fluorescent Lya Emitters at Z~2.7
• Equivalent widths of Lyman $\alpha$ emitters in MUSE-Wide and MUSE-Deep
• Dark Galaxy Candidates at Redshift ~3.5 Detected with MUSE
• Gas Accretion and Giant Lyman-alpha Nebulae
• Constraining the lifetime and opening angle of quasars using fluorescent Lyman $\alpha$ emission: the case of Q0420-388
• Active Galactic Nucleus Environments and Feedback to Neighboring Galaxies at $z\sim 5$ Probed by Lyman-Alpha Emitters
• Lyman Alpha and MgII as Probes of Galaxies and their Environments
• The Goldilocks problem of the quasar contribution to reionization
• Rest-frame UV line emission from the intergalactic medium at 2<z<5
• Probing the AGN Unification Model at redshift z $\sim$ 3 with MUSE observations of giant Ly$\alpha$ nebulae
• The candidate cluster and protocluster catalog (CCPC) of spectroscopically identified structures spanning $2.74<z<3.71$
• Clustering of Ly-alpha emitters around luminous quasars at z = 2-3: an alternative probe of reionization on galaxy formation
• Observational Aspects of Galactic Accretion at Redshift 3.3
• MUSE-inspired view of the quasar Q2059-360, its Lyman alpha blob, and its neighborhood
• Suppression of Low-mass Galaxy Formation around Quasars at z~2-3
• MMTF Discovery of Giant Ionization Cones in MR 2251-178: Implications for Quasar Radiative Feedback
• Alignments Of Black Holes With Their Warped Accretion Disks And Episodic Lifetimes Of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Spitzer's View of the Candidate Cluster and Protocluster Catalog (CCPC)
• A unique window into the Epoch of Reionisation: A double-peaked Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter in the proximity zone of a quasar at $z\sim 6.6$
• Prospects for constraining quasar ages with fiber spectrographs: quasar-induced Ly$\alpha$ emission from the intergalactic medium