Detection of dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments fluorescently illuminated by a quasar at z=2.4

TL;DR

This study uses deep narrow-band imaging to identify fluorescent Ly-alpha emitters near a quasar at z=2.4, revealing candidate dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments illuminated by quasar radiation, supported by radiative transfer simulations.

Contribution

First detection of candidate dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments illuminated by a high-redshift quasar using Ly-alpha fluorescence imaging.

Findings

98 Ly-alpha candidates detected in the quasar field.

12 sources lack continuum counterparts, indicating potential dark galaxies.

Extended filamentary gas consistent with cold streams or tidal features.

Abstract

A deep narrow-band survey for Ly-alpha emission carried out on the VLT-FORS2 has revealed 98 Ly-alpha candidates down to a flux limit of 4.e-18 erg/s/cm^2 in a volume of 5500 comoving Mpc^3 at z=2.4 centered on the hyperluminous quasar HE0109-3518. The properties of the detected sources in terms of their i) equivalent width distribution, ii) luminosity function, and iii) the average luminosity versus projected distance from the quasar, all suggest that a large fraction of these objects have been fluorescently "illuminated" by HE0109-3518. This conclusion is supported by comparison with detailed radiative transfer simulations of the effects of the quasar illumination. 18 objects have a rest-frame Equivalent Width (EW0) larger than 240A, the expected limit for Ly-alpha emission powered by Population II star formation and 12 sources among these do not have any continuum counterpart in a deep V-band imaging of the same field. For these, a stacking analysis indicates EW0>800A, effectively ruling out Ly-alpha powered by internal star formation. These sources are thus the best candidates so far for proto-galactic clouds or "dark" galaxies at high-redshift, whose existence has recently been suggested by several theoretical studies. Assuming they are mostly ionized by the quasar radiation, we estimate that their gas masses would be about 10^9 Msun implying that their star formation efficiencies (SFE) are less than 1.e-11 yr^-1 several times below the SFE of the most gas-rich dwarf galaxies locally, and five hundred times lower than typical massive star-forming galaxies at z~2. We have also discovered extended, filamentary gas, also likely illuminated by the quasar, around some of the brightest continuum-detected sources with EW0>240A. This emission is compatible with the expectations for circum-galactic cold streams but other origins, including tidal stripping, are also possible.