An Extragalactic Spectroscopic Survey of the SSA22 Field

TL;DR

This spectroscopic survey of the SSA22 field identified hundreds of extragalactic sources, including new high-redshift galaxies and X-ray sources, significantly improving redshift completeness and understanding of the protocluster environment.

Contribution

The study provides extensive new spectroscopic identifications in SSA22, including 206 sources and increased redshift completeness, enhancing the understanding of galaxy populations at z~3.

Findings

Discovery of 36 z > 2 LBGs and LAEs

Identification of 8 protocluster members

Significant increase in redshift completeness

Abstract

We present VLT VIMOS, Keck DEIMOS and Keck LRIS multi-object spectra of 367 sources in the field of the z ~ 3.09 protocluster SSA22. Sources are spectroscopically classified via template matching, allowing new identifications for 206 extragalactic sources, including 36 z > 2 Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) and Lyman-\alpha\ emitters (LAEs), 8 protocluster members, and 94 X-ray sources from the ~ 400 ks Chandra deep survey of SSA22. Additionally, in the area covered by our study, we have increased by ~ 4, 13, and 6 times the number of reliable redshifts of sources at 1.0 < z < 2.0, at z > 3.4, and with X-Ray emission, respectively. We compare our results with past spectroscopic surveys of SSA22 to investigate the completeness of the LBGs and the X-Ray properties of the new spectroscopically-classified sources in the SSA22 field.