HiZELS: the High Redshift Emission Line Survey with UKIRT

TL;DR

HiZELS is a large-scale survey using narrow-band filters on UKIRT to detect and analyze emission line galaxies at high redshifts, providing insights into galaxy evolution during peak star formation epochs.

Contribution

First large-scale, multi-redshift narrow-band survey with uniform selection, offering new constraints on star-forming galaxy evolution from z~1 to 9.

Findings

Measured evolution of cosmic star-formation rate density beyond z>2

Analyzed morphologies, environments, and dust content of star-forming galaxies

Investigated clustering properties and their evolution over cosmic time

Abstract

In these proceedings we report on HiZELS, the High-z Emission Line Survey, our successful panoramic narrow-band Campaign Survey using WFCAM on UKIRT to detect and study emission line galaxies at z~1-9. HiZELS employs the H2(S1) narrow-band filter together with custom-made narrow-band filters in the J and H-bands, with the primary aim of delivering large, identically-selected samples of H-alpha emitting galaxies at redshifts of 0.84, 1.47 and 2.23. Comparisons between the luminosity function, the host galaxy properties, the clustering, and the variation with environment of these H-alpha-selected samples are yielding unique constraints on the nature and evolution of star-forming galaxies, across the peak epoch of star-formation activity in the Universe. We provide a summary of the project status, and detail the main scientific results obtained so far: the measurement of the evolution of the cosmic star-formation rate density out to z > 2 using a single star-formation indicator, determination of the morphologies, environments and dust-content of the star-forming galaxies, and a detailed investigation of the evolution of their clustering properties. We also summarise the on-going work and future goals of the project.