TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wisotzki, Lutz
A1  - Bacon, R.
A1  - Brinchmann, J.
A1  - Cantalupo, S.
A1  - Richter, Philipp
A1  - Schaye, J.
A1  - Schmidt, Kasper Borello
A1  - Urrutia, Tanya
A1  - Weilbacher, Peter Michael
A1  - Akhlaghi, M.
A1  - Bouche, N.
A1  - Contini, T.
A1  - Guiderdoni, B.
A1  - Herenz, E. C.
A1  - Inami, H.
A1  - Kerutt, Josephine Victoria
A1  - Leclercq, F.
A1  - Marino, R. A.
A1  - Maseda, M.
A1  - Monreal-Ibero, A.
A1  - Nanayakkara, T.
A1  - Richard, J.
A1  - Saust, R.
A1  - Steinmetz, Matthias
A1  - Wendt, Martin
T1  - Nearly all the sky is covered by Lyman-alpha emission around high-redshift galaxies
JF  - Nature : the international weekly journal of science
N2  - Galaxies are surrounded by large reservoirs of gas, mostly hydrogen, that are fed by inflows from the intergalactic medium and by outflows from galactic winds. Absorption-line measurements along the lines of sight to bright and rare background quasars indicate that this circumgalactic medium extends far beyond the starlight seen in galaxies, but very little is known about its spatial distribution. The Lyman-alpha transition of atomic hydrogen at a wavelength of 121.6 nanometres is an important tracer of warm (about 104 kelvin) gas in and around galaxies, especially at cosmological redshifts greater than about 1.6 at which the spectral line becomes observable from the ground. Tracing cosmic hydrogen through its Lyman-a emission has been a long-standing goal of observational astrophysics(1-3), but the extremely low surface brightness of the spatially extended emission is a formidable obstacle. A new window into circumgalactic environments was recently opened by the discovery of ubiquitous extended Lyman-alpha emission from hydrogen around high-redshift galaxies(4,5). Such measurements were previously limited to especially favourable systems(6-8) or to the use of massive statistical averaging(9,10) because of the faintness of this emission. Here we report observations of low-surface-brightness Lyman-alpha emission surrounding faint galaxies at redshifts between 3 and 6. We find that the projected sky coverage approaches 100 per cent. The corresponding rate of incidence (the mean number of Lyman-alpha emitters penetrated by any arbitrary line of sight) is well above unity and similar to the incidence rate of high-column-density absorbers frequently detected in the spectra of distant quasars(11-14). This similarity suggests that most circumgalactic atomic hydrogen at these redshifts has now been detected in emission.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0564-6
SN  - 0028-0836
SN  - 1476-4687
VL  - 562
IS  - 7726
SP  - 229
EP  - 232
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Paalvast, M.
A1  - Verhamme, A.
A1  - Straka, L. A.
A1  - Brinchmann, J.
A1  - Herenz, Edmund Christian
A1  - Carton, D.
A1  - Gunawardhana, M. L. P.
A1  - Boogaard, L. A.
A1  - Cantalupo, S.
A1  - Contini, T.
A1  - Epinat, Benoit
A1  - Inami, H.
A1  - Marino, R. A.
A1  - Maseda, M. V.
A1  - Michel-Dansac, L.
A1  - Muzahid, S.
A1  - Nanayakkara, T.
A1  - Pezzulli, Gabriele
A1  - Richard, J.
A1  - Schaye, Joop
A1  - Segers, M. C.
A1  - Urrutia, Tanya
A1  - Wendt, Martin
A1  - Wisotzki, Lutz
T1  - Properties and redshift evolution of star-forming galaxies with high [0 III]/[O II] ratios with MUSE at 0.28 < z < 0.85
JF  - Astronomy and astrophysics : an international weekly journal
N2  - We present a study of the [O III]/[O II] ratios of star-forming galaxies drawn from Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) data spanning a redshift range 0.28 < z < 0.85. Recently discovered Lyman continuum (LyC) emitters have extremely high oxygen line ratios: [O III]lambda 5007/[O II]lambda lambda 3726, 3729 > 4. Here we aim to understand the properties and the occurrences of galaxies with such high line ratios. Combining data from several MUSE Guaranteed Time Observing (GTO) programmes, we select a population of star-forming galaxies with bright emission lines, from which we draw 406 galaxies for our analysis based on their position in the z-dependent star formation rate (SFR) stellar mass (M*) plane. Out of this sample 15 are identified as extreme oxygen emitters based on their [O III]/[O II] ratios (3.7%) and 104 galaxies have [O III]/[O II] > 1 (26%). Our analysis shows no significant correlation between M*, SFR, and the distance from the SFR M, relation with [O III]/[O II]. We find a decrease in the fraction of galaxies with [O III]/[O II] > 1 with increasing M*, however, this is most likely a result of the relationship between [O III]/[O II] and metallicity, rather than between [O III]/[O II] and M. We draw a comparison sample of local analogues with < z > 0.03 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and find similar incidence rates for this sample. In order to investigate the evolution in the fraction of high [O III]/[O II] emitters with redshift, we bin the sample into three redshift subsamples of equal number, but find no evidence for a dependence on redshift. Furthermore, we compare the observed line ratios with those predicted by nebular models with no LyC escape and find that most of the extreme oxygen emitters can be reproduced by low metallicity models. The remaining galaxies are likely LyC emitter candidates.
KW  - galaxies: evolution
KW  - galaxies: ISM
KW  - galaxies: abundances
KW  - ISM: structure
KW  - ISM: kinematics and dynamics
KW  - dark ages, reionization, first stars
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201832866
SN  - 0004-6361
SN  - 1432-0746
VL  - 618
PB  - EDP Sciences
CY  - Les Ulis
ER  -