A Ly-alpha Emitter with an Extremely Large Rest-frame Equivalent Width of ~900A at z=6.5: A Candidate of Population III-dominated Galaxy?

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a high-redshift Ly-alpha emitter with an extraordinarily large equivalent width, potentially indicating a Population III-dominated galaxy, supported by spectroscopic and modeling analyses.

Contribution

It presents the identification and detailed analysis of a Ly-alpha emitter with an unprecedented equivalent width, exploring its stellar population and ruling out certain alternative explanations.

Findings

Detected an extremely large Ly-alpha equivalent width of ~900A.

Spectroscopic data show no He II or C IV emission lines.

Population synthesis models suggest a very young, metal-poor or metal-free stellar population.

Abstract

We have identified a very interesting Ly-alpha emitter, whose Ly-alpha emission line has an extremely large observed equivalent width of EW_0=436^{+422}_{-149}A, which corresponds to an extraordinarily large intrinsic rest-frame equivalent width of EW_0^{int}=872^{+844}_{-298}A after the average intergalactic absorption correction. The object was spectroscopically confirmed to be a real Ly-alpha emitter by its apparent asymmetric Ly-alpha line profile detected at z=6.538. The continuum emission of the object was definitely detected in our deep z'-band image; thus, its EW_0 was reliably determined. Follow-up deep near-infrared spectroscopy revealed emission lines of neither He II lambda1640 as an apparent signature of Population III, nor C IV lambda1549 as a proof of active nucleus. No detection of short-lived He II lambda1640 line is not necessarily inconsistent with the interpretation that the underlying stellar population of the object is dominated by Population III. We found that the observed extremely large EW_0 of the Ly-alpha emission and the upper limit on the EW_0 of the He II lambda1640 emission can be explained by population synthesis models favoring a very young age less than 2-4Myr and massive metal-poor (Z<10^{-5}) or even metal-free stars. The observed large EW_0 of Ly-alpha is hardly explained by Population I/II synthesis models with Z>10^{-3}. However, we cannot conclusively rule out the possibility that this object is composed of a normal stellar population with a clumpy dust distribution, which could enhance the Ly-alpha EW_0, though its significance is still unclear.