The MUSE-Wide survey: a measurement of the Ly α emitting fraction among z > 3 galaxies

Joseph Caruana , Lutz Wisotzki , Edmund Christian Herenz , Josephine Kerutt , Tanya Urrutia , Kasper Borello Schmidt , Rychard Bouwens , Jarle Brinchmann , Sebastiano Cantalupo , Marcella Carollo , Catrina Diener , Alyssa Drake (1) , Thibault Garel (1) , Raffaella Anna Marino , Johan Richard (1) , Rikke Saust , Joop Schaye , Anne Verhamme (1)

1 CRAL - Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon

We present a measurement of the fraction of Lyman α (Ly α) emitters (X_{Ly α}) amongst HST continuum-selected galaxies at 3 < z < 6 with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the VLT. Making use of the first 24 MUSE-Wide pointings in GOODS-South, each having an integration time of 1 h, we detect 100 Ly α emitters and find X_{Ly α} ≳ 0.5 for most of the redshift range covered, with 29 per cent of the Ly α sample exhibiting rest equivalent widths (rest-EWs) ≤ 15 Å. Adopting a range of rest-EW cuts (0-75 Å), we find no evidence of a dependence of X_{Ly α} on either redshift or ultraviolet luminosity.

Keywords: galaxies: high-redshift; galaxies: star formation; galaxies: statistics; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Joseph Caruana, Lutz Wisotzki, Edmund Christian Herenz, Josephine Kerutt, Tanya Urrutia, et al.. The MUSE-Wide survey: a measurement of the Ly α emitting fraction among z > 3 galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2018, 473, pp.30-37. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stx2307⟩. ⟨insu-03711245⟩