SIMBAD references

2012ApJ...745...12N - Astrophys. J., 745, 12 (2012/January-3)

Average metallicity and star formation rate of Lyα emitters probed by a triple narrowband survey.

NAKAJIMA K., OUCHI M., SHIMASAKU K., ONO Y., LEE J.C., FOUCAUD S., LY C., DALE D.A., SALIM S., FINN R., ALMAINI O. and OKAMURA S.

Abstract (from CDS):

We present the average metallicity and star formation rate (SFR) of Lyα emitters (LAEs) measured from our large-area survey with three narrowband (NB) filters covering the Lyα, [O II]λ3727, and Hα+[N II] lines of LAEs at z = 2.2. We select 919 z = 2.2 LAEs from Subaru/Suprime-Cam NB data in conjunction with Magellan/IMACS spectroscopy. Of these LAEs, 561 and 105 are observed with KPNO/NEWFIRM near-infrared NB filters whose central wavelengths are matched to redshifted [O II] and Hα nebular lines, respectively. By stacking the near-infrared images of the LAEs, we successfully obtain average nebular-line fluxes of LAEs, the majority of which are too faint to be identified individually by NB imaging or deep spectroscopy. The stacked object has an Hα luminosity of 1.7x1042 erg/s corresponding to an SFR of 14 M/yr. We place, for the first time, a firm lower limit to the average metallicity of LAEs of Z ≳ 0.09 Z (2σ) based on the [O II]/(Hα+[N II]) index together with photoionization models and empirical relations. This lower limit of metallicity rules out the hypothesis that LAEs, so far observed at z ∼ 2, are extremely metal-poor (Z < 2x10–2 Z) galaxies at the 4σ level. This limit is higher than a simple extrapolation of the observed mass-metallicity relation of z ∼ 2 UV-selected galaxies toward lower masses (5x108 M), but roughly consistent with a recently proposed fundamental mass-metallicity relation when the LAEs' relatively low SFR is taken into account. The Hα and Lyα luminosities of our NB-selected LAEs indicate that the escape fraction of Lyα photons is ∼12%-30%, much higher than the values derived for other galaxy populations at z ∼ 2.

Abstract Copyright:

Journal keyword(s): galaxies: abundances - galaxies: evolution - galaxies: formation - galaxies: high-redshift - galaxies: star formation

Nomenclature: Tables 3+5: [NOS2012] NB387-A-NNNNN N=10+11.

Simbad objects: 25

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