An ultraluminous Lyα emitter with a blue wing at z = 6.6

Journal Article · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/825/1/L7· OSTI ID:22868964

Hu, E. M.; Cowie, L. L.; Songaila, A.; Barger, A. J. ^[1]; Rosenwasser, B. ^[2]; Wold, I. G. B. ^[3]

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1. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)
2. Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, the University of Texas at Austin, 2515 Speedway Boulevard, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712 (United States)

We report the detection of the most luminous high-redshift Lyα emitting galaxy (LAE) yet seen, with logL(Lyα)=43.9 erg s{sup −1}. The galaxy—COSMOS Lyα1, or COLA1—was detected in a search for ultraluminous LAEs with Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru telescope. It was confirmed as lying at z = 6.593, based on a Lyα line detection obtained from follow-up spectroscopy with the DEIMOS spectrograph on Keck II. COLA1 is the first very high-redshift LAE to show a multi-component Lyα line profile with a blue wing, which suggests that it could lie in a highly ionized region of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and could have significant infall. If this interpretation is correct, then ultraluminous LAEs like COLA1 offer a unique opportunity to determine the properties of the H ii regions around these galaxies, which will help in understanding the ionization of the z ∼ 7 IGM.

• OSTI ID: 22868964
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 825; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY
DETECTION
GALAXIES
IONIZATION
LUMINOSITY
RED SHIFT
SPECTROSCOPY
TELESCOPES