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TY - CHAP
T1 - The HiZELS/UKIRT large area survey for bright Lyman-alpha emitters at z~9
AU - Sobral, David
AU - Best, Philip
AU - Geach, Jim
AU - Smail, Ian
AU - Kurk, Jaron
AU - Cirasuolo, Michele
AU - Casali, Mark
AU - Ivison, Rob
AU - Coppin, Kristen
AU - Dalton, Gavin
N1 - To appear in proceedings of "UKIRT at 30: A British Success Story"
PY - 2013/10/9
Y1 - 2013/10/9
N2 - We present the largest area survey to date (1.4 deg2) for Lyα emitters (LAEs) at z ∼ 9, as part of the Hi-z Emission Line Survey (HiZELS). The survey, which primarily targets Hα emitters at z > 3, uses the Wide Field Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and a custom narrowband filter in the J band to reach a Lyα luminosity limit of ∼1043.8 erg s−1 over a co-moving volume of 1.12 × 106 Mpc3 at z = 8.96 ± 0.06. Two candidates were found out of 1,517 line emitters, but those were rejected as LAEs after follow-up observations. This improves the limit on the space density of bright Lyα emitters by three orders of magnitude and is consistent with suppression of the bright end of the Lyα luminosity function beyond z ∼ 6. Combined with upper limits from smaller but deeper surveys, this rules out some of the most extreme models for high-redshift Lyα emitters. The potential contamination of narrowband Lyα surveys at z < 7 by Galactic brown dwarf stars is also examined, leading to the conclusion that such contamination may well be significant for searches at 7.7 > z > 8.0, 9.1 > z > 9.5 and 11.7 > z > 12.2.
AB - We present the largest area survey to date (1.4 deg2) for Lyα emitters (LAEs) at z ∼ 9, as part of the Hi-z Emission Line Survey (HiZELS). The survey, which primarily targets Hα emitters at z > 3, uses the Wide Field Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and a custom narrowband filter in the J band to reach a Lyα luminosity limit of ∼1043.8 erg s−1 over a co-moving volume of 1.12 × 106 Mpc3 at z = 8.96 ± 0.06. Two candidates were found out of 1,517 line emitters, but those were rejected as LAEs after follow-up observations. This improves the limit on the space density of bright Lyα emitters by three orders of magnitude and is consistent with suppression of the bright end of the Lyα luminosity function beyond z ∼ 6. Combined with upper limits from smaller but deeper surveys, this rules out some of the most extreme models for high-redshift Lyα emitters. The potential contamination of narrowband Lyα surveys at z < 7 by Galactic brown dwarf stars is also examined, leading to the conclusion that such contamination may well be significant for searches at 7.7 > z > 8.0, 9.1 > z > 9.5 and 11.7 > z > 12.2.
KW - astro-ph.CO
U2 - 10.1007/978-94-007-7432-2_23
DO - 10.1007/978-94-007-7432-2_23
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9789400774315
T3 - Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings
SP - 251
EP - 258
BT - Thirty Years of Astronomical Discovery with UKIRT
A2 - Adamson, Andy
A2 - Davies, John
A2 - Robson, Ian
PB - Springer
ER -