2006ApJ...637...58O

We present HST ACS observations of the most distant radio galaxy known, TN J0924-2201 at z=5.2. This radio galaxy has six spectroscopically confirmed Lyα-emitting companion galaxies and appears to lie within an overdense region. The radio galaxy is marginally resolved in i₇₇₅ and z₈₅₀, showing continuum emission aligned with the radio axis, similar to what is observed for lower redshift radio galaxies. Both the half-light radius and the UV star formation rate are comparable to the typical values found for Lyman break galaxies at z∼4-5. The Lyα emitters are sub-L_*galaxies, with deduced star formation rates of 1-10 M_☉/yr. One of the Lyα emitters is only detected in Lyα. Based on the star formation rate of ∼3 M_☉/yr calculated from Lyα, the lack of continuum emission could be explained if the galaxy is younger than ∼2 Myr and is producing its first stars. Observations in V₆₀₆i₇₇₅z₈₅₀were used to identify additional Lyman break galaxies associated with this structure. In addition to the radio galaxy, there are 22 V₆₀₆break (z∼5) galaxies with z₈₅₀<26.5 (5 σ), two of which are also in the spectroscopic sample. We compare the surface density of ∼2/arcmin2 to that of similarly selected V₆₀₆dropouts extracted from GOODS and the UDF parallel fields. We find evidence for an overdensity to very high confidence (>99%), based on a counts-in-cells analysis applied to the control field. The excess suggests that the V₆₀₆break objects are associated with a forming cluster around the radio galaxy.