Van Breukelen, C.; Jarvis, M.J.; Venemans, B.P.; (2005) The luminosity function of Lyα emitters at 2.3 < z < 4.6 from integral-field spectroscopy. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , 359 (3) pp. 895-905. 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08916.x.

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Abstract

We have used Visible MultiObject Spectrograph Integral-Field Unit observations centred on a radio galaxy at z= 2.9 to search for Lyα emitters within a comoving volume of ∼104 Mpc3 . We find 14 Lyα emitters with flux >1.4 × 10−20 W m−2 , yielding a comoving space density of 0.0018+0.0006−0.0005 Mpc−3 . We fit a Schechter luminosity function that agrees well with previous studies both at similar redshift (z∼ 3.4) and higher redshift (z∼ 5.7) . We therefore find no evidence for evolution in the properties of Lyα emitters between 3 < z < 6 , although our sample is small. By summing the star-formation rates of the individual Lyα emitters we find a total cosmic star-formation rate density of ρSFR= 6.7 ± 0.5 × 10−3 M⊙ yr−1 Mpc−3 . Integrating over the luminosity function for the combined Lyα surveys at z∼ 3.4 and accounting for the difference in obscuration between the Lyα line and the ultraviolet-continuum yields an estimate of ρSFR∼ 2.2 × 10−2 M⊙ yr−1 Mpc−3 , in line with previous multi-colour and narrow-band surveys of high-redshift star-forming galaxies. The detection of high-redshift emission-line galaxies in our volumetric search shows that the unique capabilities of wide-field integral-field spectroscopy are well suited to searching for high-redshift galaxies in a relatively unbiased manner.

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