Y. I. Izotov, Gábor Worseck, Daniel Schaerer, N. G. Guseva, T. X. Thuan, K. J. Fricke, Anne Verhamme, I. Orlitova

• We present observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope of five star-forming galaxies at redshifts z in the range 0.2993-0.4317 and with high emission-line flux ratios O-32 = [O III]lambda 5007/[O II]lambda 3727 similar to 8-27 aiming to detect the Lyman continuum (LyC) emission. We detect LyC emission in all galaxies with the escape fractions f(esc)(LyC) in a range of 2-72 per cent. A narrow Ly alpha emission line with two peaks in four galaxies and with three peaks in one object is seen in medium-resolution COS spectra with a velocity separation between the peaks V-sep varying from similar to 153 to similar to 345 km s(-1). We find a general increase of the LyC escape fraction with increasing O-32 and decreasing stellar mass M-star, but with a large scatter of f(esc)(LyC). A tight anticorrelation is found between f(esc)(LyC) and V-sep making V-sep a good parameter for the indirect determination of the LyC escape fraction. We argue that one possible source driving the escape of ionizingWe present observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope of five star-forming galaxies at redshifts z in the range 0.2993-0.4317 and with high emission-line flux ratios O-32 = [O III]lambda 5007/[O II]lambda 3727 similar to 8-27 aiming to detect the Lyman continuum (LyC) emission. We detect LyC emission in all galaxies with the escape fractions f(esc)(LyC) in a range of 2-72 per cent. A narrow Ly alpha emission line with two peaks in four galaxies and with three peaks in one object is seen in medium-resolution COS spectra with a velocity separation between the peaks V-sep varying from similar to 153 to similar to 345 km s(-1). We find a general increase of the LyC escape fraction with increasing O-32 and decreasing stellar mass M-star, but with a large scatter of f(esc)(LyC). A tight anticorrelation is found between f(esc)(LyC) and V-sep making V-sep a good parameter for the indirect determination of the LyC escape fraction. We argue that one possible source driving the escape of ionizing radiation is stellar winds and radiation from hot massive stars.…