EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES FROM THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE PROBING EVOLUTION AND REIONIZATION SPECTROSCOPICALLY (PEARS) GRISM SURVEY. I. THE SOUTH FIELDS

Journal Article · Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/138/4/1022; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21301604

Straughn, Amber N; Gardner, Jonathan P ^[1]; Pirzkal, Norbert; Grogin, Norman; Panagia, Nino ^[2]; Meurer, Gerhardt R ^[3]; Cohen, Seth H; Windhorst, Rogier A; Malhotra, Sangeeta; Rhoads, James; Jansen, Rolf A ^[4]; Hathi, Nimish P ^[5]; Di Serego Alighieri, Sperello ^[6]; Gronwall, Caryl ^[7]; Walsh, Jeremy ^[8]; Pasquali, Anna ^[9]; Xu, Chun ^[10]

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1. Astrophysics Science Division, Observational Cosmology Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 665, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
2. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
4. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 (United States)
5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 (United States)
6. INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, I-50125 Firenze (Italy)
7. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
8. ESO Space Telescope European Co-ordinating Facility, D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen (Germany)
9. Max-Planck-Institut for Astronomie, Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
10. Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, 200083 Shanghai (China)

We present results of a search for emission-line galaxies (ELGs) in the southern fields of the Hubble Space Telescope Probing Evolution And Reionization Spectroscopically (PEARS) grism survey. The PEARS South Fields consist of five Advanced Camera for Surveys pointings (including the Hubble Ultra Deep Field) with the G800L grism for a total of 120 orbits, revealing thousands of faint object spectra in the GOODS-South region of the sky. ELGs are one subset of objects that are prevalent among the grism spectra. Using a two-dimensional detection and extraction procedure, we find 320 emission lines originating from 226 galaxy 'knots' within 192 individual galaxies. Line identification results in 118 new grism-spectroscopic redshifts for galaxies in the GOODS-South Field. We measure emission-line fluxes using standard Gaussian fitting techniques. At the resolution of the grism data, the H{beta} and [O III] doublet are blended. However, by fitting two Gaussian components to the H{beta} and [O III] features, we find that many of the PEARS ELGs have high [O III]/H{beta} ratios compared to other galaxy samples of comparable luminosities. The star formation rates of the ELGs are presented, as well as a sample of distinct giant star-forming regions at z {approx} 0.1-0.5 across individual galaxies. We find that the radial distances of these H II regions in general reside near the galaxies' optical continuum half-light radii, similar to those of giant H II regions in local galaxies.

• OSTI ID: 21301604
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 138, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/138/4/1022; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
CATALOGS
FIELD EMISSION
GIANT STARS
LUMINOSITY
MILKY WAY
ORBITS
RED SHIFT
TELESCOPES