Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Bright Lyman-break Galaxy Candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Not LBGs After All

TL;DR

This study used Hubble imaging to analyze six bright Lyman-break galaxy candidates from SDSS, discovering that five are likely quasars and one has a nearby faint companion, challenging their initial classification.

Contribution

The paper provides high-resolution imaging evidence that most of these bright candidates are not true Lyman-break galaxies but quasars, refining their classification.

Findings

Five objects are unresolved point sources, likely quasars.

One object has a faint nearby companion galaxy.

Most candidates are not actual Lyman-break galaxies.

Abstract

We present deep Hubble Space Telescope ACS and NICMOS images of six bright Lyman-break galaxy candidates that were previously discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that five of the objects are consistent with unresolved point sources. Although somewhat atypical of the class, they are most likely LoBAL quasars, perhaps FeLoBALs. The sixth object, J1147, has a faint companion galaxy located ~0.8 arcsec to the southwest. The companion contributes ~8% of the flux in the observed-frame optical and infrared. It is unknown whether this companion is located at the same redshift as J1147.