Ly$α$ emission is a standard tracer of starburst galaxies at high redshift. However, a number of local Ly$α$ emitters (LAEs) are X-ray sources, suggesting a possible origin of Ly$α$ photons other than young, hot stars, and which may be active at much later ages relative to the parent starburst. Resolved, nearby LAEs offer the opportunity to discriminate between diffuse X-ray emission arising from supernova-heated gas, high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), or low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN). We examine archival X-ray imaging from Chandra and XMM-Newton for 11 galaxies with spatially resolved Ly$α$ imaging to determine the luminosity, morphology, and spectral hardness of the X-ray sources. The data are consistent with 9 of the 12, bright Ly$α$ sources being driven by luminous, $10^{40}$ erg s$^{-1}$ X-ray sources. Half of the 8 Chandra sources are unresolved. The data suggest that nuclear activity, whether from LLAGN or nuclear starbursts, may play an important role in Ly$α$ emission. Our results also suggest a significant link between Ly$α$ emission and HMXBs, ULXs, and/or LLAGN, which would imply that Ly$α$ may be generated over timescales 1 - 2 orders of magnitude longer than produced by photoionization from OB stars. This highlights a critical need to quantify the relative contributions of different sources across cosmic time, to interpret Ly$α$ observations and the resulting properties of distant galaxies.
Mergers Drive Structural Complexity but Not Starbursts in Lyman-$α$ Emitters at $3 < z < 4$: A JWST Spatially Resolved View
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院国家天文台);Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院国家天文台光学天文重点实验室);School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Science(中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院);Key Laboratory of Space Astronomy and Technology, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院国家天文台空间天文与技术重点实验室);College of Physical Science and Technology, Shenyang Normal University(沈阳师范大学物理科学与技术学院)
研究发现3 < z < 4的Lyman-α发射体中合并驱动结构复杂性,但未引发显著恒星爆发,通过JWST空间分辨分析揭示合并对LAEs特性的影响。
(abridged) Observing the signature of accretion from the intergalactic medium (IGM) onto galaxies at z~3 requires the detection of faint (L<<L*) galaxies embedded in a filamentary matrix of low-density, metal-poor gas coherent over hundreds of kpc. We study the gaseous environment of three Lyman$α$ emitters (LAEs) at z=2.7-2.8, found to be aligned in projection with a background QSO over ~250 kpc along the slit of a long-slit spectrum. The lack of detection of the LAEs in deep continuum images and the low inferred Ly$α$ luminosities show the LAEs to be intrinsically faint, low-mass galaxies (L…
In this manuscript, we study properties of long-term optical variability of a large sample of 106 SDSS spectroscopically confirmed AGN with double-peaked broad low-ionization emission lines (double-peaked emitters). The long-term optical light curves over 8 years are collected from the Catalina Sky Surveys Data Release 2. And, the Damped Random Walk (DRW) process is applied to describe the long-term variability of the double-peaked emitters. Meanwhile, the same DRW process is applied to long-term optical light curves of more than 7000 spectroscopically confirmed normal quasars in the SDSS Stri…
We report on the search for galaxies in the proximity of two very metal-poor gas clouds at z~3 towards the quasar Q0956+122. With a 5-hour MUSE integration in a ~500x500 kpc^2 region centred at the quasar position, we achieve a >80% complete spectroscopic survey of continuum-detected galaxies with m<25 mag and Lyα emitters with luminosity L>3e41 erg/s. We do not identify galaxies at the redshift of a z~3.2 Lyman limit system (LLS) with log Z/Zsun = -3.35 +/- 0.05, placing this gas cloud in the intergalactic medium or circumgalactic medium of a galaxy below our sensitivity limits. Conversely, w…
A Census of Double-Peaked Lyman-alpha Emitters in MAGPI: Classification, Global Characteristics, and Spatially Resolved Properties
Macquarie University(麦考瑞大学);Swinburne University of Technology(斯威本科技大学);Observatori Astronòmic de la Universitat de València(瓦伦西亚大学天文台);International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), Curtin University(伊萨研究中心(ICRAR),科廷大学);Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, University of Sydney(悉尼大学物理学院悉尼天体物理学研究所);International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia(伊萨研究中心(ICRAR),西澳大学)
Distant luminous Lyman-alpha emitters are excellent targets for detailed observations of galaxies in the epoch of reionisation. Spatially resolved observations of these galaxies allow us to simultaneously probe the emission from young stars, partially ionised gas in the interstellar medium and to constrain the properties of the surrounding hydrogen in the circumgalactic medium. We review recent results from (spectroscopic) follow-up studies of the rest-frame UV, Lyman-alpha and [CII] emission in luminous galaxies observed ~500 Myr after the Big Bang with ALMA, HST/WFC3 and VLT/X-SHOOTER. These…
We report the discovery of a 10 comoving Mpc-scale structure traced by massive submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) at z~4.6. These galaxies are selected from an emission line search of ALMA Band 7 observations targeting 184 luminous submillimeter sources ($S_{850μ{\rm m}}\geq$ 6.2 mJy) across 1.6 degrees$^2$ in the COSMOS field. We identify four [CII] emitting SMGs and two probable [CII] emitting SMG candidates at z=4.60-4.64 with velocity-integrated signal-to-noise ratio of SNR>8. Four of the six emitters are near-infrared blank SMGs. After excluding one SMG whose emission line is falling at the ed…
We introduce a new library of 535,194 model images of the supermassive black holes and Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) targets Sgr A* and M87*, computed by performing general relativistic radiative transfer calculations on general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations. Then, to infer underlying black hole and accretion flow parameters (spin, inclination, ion-to-electron temperature ratio, and magnetic field polarity), we train a random forest machine learning model on various hand-picked polarimetric observables computed from each image. Our random forest is capable of making meaningful …
Emission line galaxies provide a crucial tool for the study of galaxy formation and evolution, providing a means to trace a galaxy's star formation history or metal enrichment, and to identify galaxies at a range of stellar masses. In this paper we present a study of emission line galaxies in the SHARDS Frontier Fields medium-band survey. Through detailed flux calibrations we combine the first results of the SHARDS-FF survey with existing Hubble Frontier Field data to select 1,098 candidate emission line galaxies from the Hubble Frontier Filed clusters Abell 370 and MACS J1149.5+2223. Furtherm…
We present new HST/WFC3 observations and re-analyse VLT data to unveil the continuum, variability and rest-frame UV lines of the multiple UV clumps of the most luminous Ly$α$ emitter at z=6.6, CR7. Our re-reduced, flux calibrated X-SHOOTER spectra of CR7 reveal a HeII emission line in observations obtained along the major axis of Lyman-alpha (Lya) emission with the best seeing conditions. HeII is spatially offset by +0.8'' from the peak of Lya emission, and it is found towards clump B. Our WFC3 grism spectra detects the UV continuum of CR7's clump A, yielding a power law with $β=-2.5^{+0.6}_{-…
The Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) emission line has been ubiquitously used to confirm and study high redshift galaxies. We report on the line morphology as seen in the 2D spectra from the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey in a sample of 914 Ly$α$ emitters from a parent sample of 4192 star-forming galaxies at $2<z_\mathrm{spec}\lesssim6$. The study of the spatial extent of Ly$α$ emission provides insight into the escape of Ly$α$ photons from galaxies. We classify the line emission as either non-existent, coincident, projected spatial offset, or extended with respect to the observed 2D UV continuum emission. The line…
Galaxy pairs with separations of only a few kpc represent important stages in the merger-driven growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). However, such mergers are difficult to identify observationally due to the correspondingly small angular scales. In Paper I we presented a method of finding candidate kpc-scale galaxy mergers that is leveraged on the selection of X-ray sources spatially offset from the centers of host galaxies. In this paper we analyze new Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFC3 imaging for six of these sources to search for signatures of galaxy mergers. The HST imaging reveals …
Despite recent progress in understanding Lyman-alpha (Lya) emitters (LAEs), relatively little is known regarding their typical black hole activity across cosmic time. Here, we study the X-ray and radio properties of ~4000 LAEs at 2.2<z<6 from the SC4K survey in the COSMOS field. We detect 254 (6.8+-0.4%) of the LAEs individually in the X-rays (S/N>3) and find an average luminosity of 10^{44.31+-0.01} erg/s and an average black hole accretion rate (BHAR) of 0.72+-0.01 Msun/yr, consistent with moderate to high accreting AGN. We detect 120 sources in deep radio data (radio AGN fraction of 3.2%+-0…