Lyman alpha Emitting Galaxies in the Nearby Universe
Matthew Hayes (Stockholm University, Dept of Astronomy & Oskar Klein, Centre)

TL;DR
This review summarizes observations of Lyman alpha emission in nearby galaxies, highlighting its correlation with galaxy properties, outflows, and the potential for understanding galaxy evolution through detailed multi-wavelength studies.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive overview of local Lyman alpha observations, emphasizing the role of outflows, metallicity, and dust in Lya emission and escape, and discusses implications for galaxy evolution.
Findings
Lya emission is more common in less massive, younger galaxies.
Galaxies with high Lya equivalent width often have galactic winds exceeding 50 km/s.
Lya halos dominate the total Lya luminosity in galaxies with net emission.
Abstract
The Lya emission line of HI is intrinsically the brightest feature in the spectrum of astrophysical nebulae, making it a very attractive observational tool with which to survey galaxies. Moreover as a UV resonance line, Lya possesses several unique characteristics that make it useful to study the ISM and ionizing stellar population at all cosmic epochs. In this review I present a summary of Lya observations of galaxies in the nearby universe. At UV magnitudes reachable with current facilities, only ~5% of the local galaxy population shows a Lya equivalent width (EW_Lya) that exceeds 20\AA. This fraction increases dramatically at higher z, but only in the local universe can we study galaxies in detail and assemble unprecedented multi-wavelength datasets. I discuss many local Lya observations, showing that when galaxies show net Lya emission, they ubiquitously produce large halos of…
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