VLT/XSHOOTER & Subaru/MOIRCS spectroscopy of HUDF-YD3: No evidence for Lyman-alpha emission at z=8.55

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dc.contributor.authorBunker, Andrew J.
dc.contributor.authorCaruana, Joseph
dc.contributor.authorWilkins, Stephen M.
dc.contributor.authorJarvis, Matt
dc.date.accessioned2018-02-16T09:04:17Z
dc.date.available2018-02-16T09:04:17Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.description.abstractWe present spectroscopic observations with VLT/XSHOOTER and Subaru/MOIRCS of a relatively bright Y -band drop-out galaxy in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, first selected by Bunker et al. (2010), McLure et al. (2010) and Bouwens et al. (2010) to be a likely z ≈ 8 − 9 galaxy on the basis of its colours in the HST ACS and WFC 3 images. This galaxy, HUDF.YD3 (also known as UDFy-38135539) has been targetted for VLT/SINFONI integral field spectroscopy by Lehnert et al. (2010), who published a candidate Lyman-α emission line at z = 8.55 from this source. In our independent spectroscopy using two different infrared spectrographs (5 hours with VLT/XSHOOTER and 11 hours with Subaru/MOIRCS) we are unable to reproduce this line. We do not detect any emission line at the spectral and spatial location reported in Lehnert et al. (2010), despite the expected signal in our combined MOIRCS & XSHOOTER data being 5 σ. The line emission also seems to be ruled out by the faintness of this object in recently extremely deep F105W (Y -band) HST/WFC 3 imaging from HUDF12; the line would fall within this filter and such a galaxy should have been detected at YAB = 28.6 mag ( ∼ 20σ) rather than the marginal YAB ≈ 30 mag observed in the Y -band image, > 3 times fainter than would be expected if the emission lie was real. Hence it appears highly unlikely that the reported Lyman-α line emission at z > 8 is real, meaning that the highest-redshift sources for which Lyman-α emission has been seen are at z = 6.9 − 7.2. It is conceivable that Lyman-α does not escape galaxies at higher redshifts, where the Gunn-Peterson absorption renders the Universe optically thick to this line. However, deeper spectroscopy on a larger sample of candidate z > 7 galaxies will be needed to test this.en_US
dc.description.accreditationWeb of Science
dc.identifier.citationBunker, A.J. et al. (2013). VLT/XSHOOTER & Subaru/MOIRCS spectroscopy of HUDF-YD3: No evidence for Lyman-alpha emission at z=8.55. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 430(4): 3314 - 3319en_US
dc.identifier.issn0035-8711
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt132
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/3506
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.privacy.showsubmitterFALSE
dc.publisherOxford University Pressen_US
dc.rightsThis is the pre-print version (From arXiv:1301.4477) of the article published online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt132
dc.status.ispeerreviewedTRUE
dc.subjectGalaxiesen_US
dc.subjectEvolutionen_US
dc.subjectFormationen_US
dc.subjectStarbursten_US
dc.subjectHigh-redshiften_US
dc.subjectUltravioleten_US
dc.titleVLT/XSHOOTER & Subaru/MOIRCS spectroscopy of HUDF-YD3: No evidence for Lyman-alpha emission at z=8.55en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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