Lyman-alpha Blobs Like Company : The Discovery of A Candidate 100 kpc Lyman-alpha Blob Near to A Radio Galaxy with A Giant Lyman-alpha halo, B3 J2330+3927 at z=3.1

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of a giant radio-quiet Lyman-alpha blob near a high-redshift radio galaxy within a large-scale structure, highlighting environmental factors in the formation of Lyman-alpha nebulae.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of a 100 kpc radio-quiet Lyman-alpha blob in a large-scale structure at z=3.1, linking nebulae formation to environmental density.

Findings

A 130 kpc Lyman-alpha halo surrounds B3 J2330+3927.

A 100 kpc RQLAB was discovered in a dense environment.

Large-scale filamentary structure contains significant galaxy overdensities.

Abstract

We present the discovery of a candidate of giant radio-quiet Lyman-alpha (Lya) blob (RQLAB) in a large-scale structure around a high-redshift radio galaxy (HzRG) lying in a giant Lya halo, B3 J2330+3927 at redshift z=3.087. We obtained Lya imaging around B3 J2330+3927 with Subaru/Suprime-Cam to search for Lya emitters (LAEs) and absorbers (LAAs) at redshift z=3.09+-0.03. We detected candidate 127 LAEs and 26 LAAs in the field of view of 31' x 24'. We found that B3 J2330+3927 is surrounded by a 130 kpc Lya halo and a large-scale (60 x 20 comoving Mpc) filamentary structure. The large-scale structure contains one prominent local density peak with an overdensity of greater than 5, which is 8' (15 comoving Mpc) away from B3 J2330+3927. In this peak, we discovered a candidate 100 kpc RQLAB. The existence of both types of Lya nebulae in the same large-scale structure suggests that giant Lya nebulae need special large-scale environments to form. On smaller scales, however, the location of B3 J2330+3927 is not a significant local density peak in this structure, in contrast to the RQLAB. There are two possible interpretations of the difference of the local environments of these two Lya nebulae. Firstly, RQLAB may need a prominent (delta ~ 5) density peak of galaxies to form through intense star-bursts due to frequent galaxy interactions/mergers and/or continuous gas accretion in an overdense environment. On the other hand, Lya halo around HzRG may not always need a prominent density peak to form if the surrounding Lya halo is mainly powered by its radio and AGN activities. Alternatively, both RQLAB and Lya halo around HzRG may need prominent density peaks to form but we could not completely trace the density of galaxies because we missed evolved and dusty galaxies in this survey.