Lyman Break Galaxies at z~5: Rest-frame UV Spectra II

TL;DR

This study investigates the spectral properties of Lyman Break Galaxies at z~5, revealing a deficiency of strong Ly alpha emission in bright galaxies and evidence of chemical evolution and metallicity differences compared to lower redshift galaxies.

Contribution

It provides new spectroscopic data on z~5 LBGs, analyzes their metallicity and Ly alpha emission, and compares their properties with lower-redshift galaxies.

Findings

Bright LBGs at z~5 show weak Ly alpha emission and strong LIS absorption.

Spectral analysis suggests these galaxies are chemically evolved to at least 0.1 solar metallicity.

Metallicity of z~5 LBGs tends to be lower than similar mass galaxies at z<2.

Abstract

We present the results of spectroscopy of Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) at z~5 in the J0053+1234 field with the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph on the Subaru telescope. Among 5 bright candidates with z' < 25.0 mag, 2 objects are confirmed to be at z~5 from their Ly alpha emission and the continuum depression shortward of Ly alpha. The EWs of Ly alpha emission of the 2 LBGs are not so strong to be detected as Ly alpha emitters, and one of them shows strong low-ionized interstellar (LIS) metal absorption lines. Two faint objects with z' \geq 25.0 mag are also confirmed to be at z~5, and their spectra show strong Ly alpha emission in contrast to the bright ones. These results suggest a deficiency of strong Ly alpha emission in bright LBGs at z~5, which has been discussed in our previous paper. Combined with our previous spectra of LBGs at z~5 obtained around the Hubble Deep Field-North (HDF-N), we made a composite spectrum of UV luminous (M_1400 \leq -21.5 mag) LBGs at z~5. The resultant spectrum shows a weak Ly alpha emission and strong LIS absorptions which suggests that the bright LBGs at z~5 have chemically evolved at least to ~0.1 solar metallicity. For a part of our sample in the HDF-N region, we obtained near-to-mid infrared data, which constraint stellar masses of these objects. With the stellar mass and the metallicity estimated from LIS absorptions, the metallicities of the LBGs at z~5 tend to be lower than those of the galaxies with the same stellar mass at z \lesssim 2, although the uncertainty is very large.