Completing the Census of Ly-alpha Emitters at the Reionization Epoch
Nobunari Kashikawa, Kazuhiro Shimasaku, Yuichi Matsuda, Eiichi Egami,, Linhua Jiang, Tohru Nagao, Masami Ouchi, Matthew A. Malkan, Takashi Hattori,, Kazuaki Ota, Yoshiaki Taniguchi, Sadanori Okamura, Chun Ly, Masanori Iye,, Hisanori Furusawa, Yasuhiro Shioya, Takatoshi Shibuya

TL;DR
This study spectroscopically confirmed and analyzed Ly-alpha emitters at z=6.5 and 5.7, revealing a decline in Ly-alpha luminosity function at higher redshift and estimating LAEs' contribution to cosmic reionization.
Contribution
It provides the first detailed measurement of the Ly-alpha and UV luminosity functions at z=6.5, improving understanding of LAEs' role in reionization.
Findings
Ly-alpha LF shows a deficit at z=6.5 compared to z=5.7.
Rest-UV LF at z=6.5 and 5.7 are consistent at the bright end.
LAEs likely contribute significantly to the ionizing photon budget, especially at faint luminosities.
Abstract
We carried out extended spectroscopic confirmations of Ly-alpha emitters (LAEs) at z=6.5 and 5.7 in the Subaru Deep Field. Now, the total number of spectroscopically confirmed LAEs is 45 and 54 at z=6.5 and 5.7, respectively, and at least 81% (70%) of our photometric candidates at z=6.5 (5.7) have been spectroscopically identified as real LAEs. We made careful measurements of the Ly-alpha luminosity, both photometrically and spectroscopically, to accurately determine the Ly-alpha and rest-UV luminosity functions (LFs). The substantially improved evaluation of the Ly-alpha LF at z=6.5 shows an apparent deficit from z=5.7 at least at the bright end, and a possible decline even at the faint end, though small uncertainties remain. The rest-UV LFs at z=6.5 and 5.7 are in good agreement, at least at the bright end, in clear contrast to the differences seen in the Ly-alpha LF. These results…
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