A Deep Ly$\alpha$ Survey in ECDF-S and COSMOS: I. General Properties of Lyman-alpha Emitters at $z\sim2$

TL;DR

This study presents a deep survey of Lyα emitters at z~2, revealing their properties, stellar masses, star formation rates, and clustering, indicating they are low-mass, star-forming galaxies likely progenitors of LMC-like galaxies.

Contribution

First comprehensive deep narrowband survey of LAEs at z~2 with detailed stellar and clustering properties, expanding understanding of their role in galaxy evolution.

Findings

LAEs have a steep faint-end Lyα luminosity function.

Median stellar mass of IRAC-undetected LAEs is ~10^8 M_sun.

LAEs reside in dark matter halos of ~10^11 M_sun.

Abstract

Ly$\alpha$ Emitters (LAEs) may represent an important galaxy population in the low mass regime. We present our deep narrowband imaging surveys in the COSMOS and ECDF-S fields and study the properties of LAEs at $z=2.23\pm0.03$. The narrowband surveys conducted at Magellan II telescope allow us to obtain a sample of 452 LAEs reaching a $5\sigma$ limiting magnitude of $\sim26$ mag. Our Ly$\alpha$ luminosity functions extend to $10^{41.8}$ erg s$^{-1}$ with steep faint-end slope. Using multi-wavelength ancillary data, especially the deep Spitzer/IRAC 3.6$\mu$m and 4.5$\mu$m photometric data, we obtained reliable stellar mass estimates for 130 IRAC-detected LAEs, spanning a range of $8 < {\rm log}(M_\star/M_\odot)< 11.5$. For the remaining IRAC-undetected LAEs, the median-stacked spectral energy distribution yields a stellar mass of ${\rm log}(M_\star/M_\odot)=7.97^{+0.05}_{-0.07}$ and the rest-frame ultraviolet emission indicates a median star formation rate of ${\rm log} (SFR/M_\odot$ yr$^{-1})=-0.14\pm0.35$. There are six LAEs detected by the Spitzer/MIPS 24$\mu$m or even Herschel far-infrared observations. Taking into account the six MIR/FIR detected LAEs, our LAEs cover a wide range in the star formation rate (${\rm 1<SFR<2000}$ M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$). Although LAEs as a population are diverse in their stellar properties, they are mostly low-mass star-forming galaxies and follow the star formation main sequence relations or their extrapolations to the low-mass end, implying a normal star-forming nature of LAEs. The clustering analysis indicates that our LAEs reside in dark matter halos with ${\rm <\log(M_{h}/M_{\odot})> =10.8^{+0.56}_{-1.1}}$, suggesting that they are progenitors of local Large Magellanic Cloud-like galaxies.