Ly alpha Halos around [O iii]-selected Galaxies in HETDEX

Lujan Niemeyer, Maja; Bowman, William P.; Ciardullo, Robin; Gronke, Max; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Fabricius, Maximilian; Farrow, Daniel J.; Finkelstein, Steven L.; Gebhardt, Karl; Gronwall, Caryl; Hill, Gary J.; Liu, Chenxu; Cooper, Erin Mentuch; Schneider, Donald P.; Tuttle, Sarah und Zeimann, Gregory R. (2022): Ly alpha Halos around [O iii]-selected Galaxies in HETDEX. In: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 934, No. 2, L26

Abstract

We present extended Ly alpha emission out to 800 kpc of 1034 [O iii]-selected galaxies at redshifts 1.9 < z < 2.35 using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. The locations and redshifts of the galaxies are taken from the 3D-HST survey. The median-stacked surface brightness profile of the Ly alpha emission of the [O iii]-selected galaxies agrees well with that of 968 bright Ly alpha-emitting galaxies (LAEs) at r > 40 kpc from the galaxy centers. The surface brightness in the inner parts (r < 10 kpc) around the [O iii]-selected galaxies, however, is 10 times fainter than that of the LAEs. Our results are consistent with the notion that photons dominating the outer regions of the Ly alpha halos are not produced in the central galaxies but originate outside of them.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 2041-8205
• Language: English
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 426170771