The evolution of rest-frame UV properties, Lya EWs and the SFR-Stellar mass relation at z~2-6 for SC4K LAEs

TL;DR

This study analyzes the properties and evolution of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) from redshift 2 to 6, revealing their consistent high Lya escape fraction and similarities with UV-selected galaxies over cosmic time.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectral energy distribution analysis of ~4000 LAEs across z~2-6, highlighting their evolving properties and relation to star formation and UV characteristics.

Findings

LAEs are typically young, dust-poor, with high Lya escape fractions.

Little to no evolution in Lya EW and scale length from z~6 to 2.

LAEs increasingly resemble UV-selected star-forming galaxies at high redshift.

Abstract

We explore deep rest-frame UV to FIR data in the COSMOS field to measure the individual spectral energy distributions (SED) of the ~4000 SC4K (Sobral et al. 2018) Lyman-alpha (Lya) emitters (LAEs) at z~2-6. We find typical stellar masses of 10$^{9.3\pm0.6}$ M$_{\odot}$ and star formation rates (SFR) of SFR$_{SED}=4.4^{+10.5}_{-2.4}$ M$_{\odot}$/yr and SFR$_{Lya}=5.9^{+6.3}_{-2.6}$ M$_{\odot}$/yr, combined with very blue UV slopes of beta=-2.1$^{+0.5}_{-0.4}$, but with significant variations within the population. M$_{UV}$ and beta are correlated in a similar way to UV-selected sources, but LAEs are consistently bluer. This suggests that LAEs are the youngest and/or most dust-poor subset of the UV-selected population. We also study the Lya rest-frame equivalent width (EW$_0$) and find 45 "extreme" LAEs with EW$_0>240$ A (3 $\sigma$), implying a low number density of $(7\pm1)\times10^{-7}$ Mpc$^{-3}$. Overall, we measure little to no evolution of the Lya EW$_0$ and scale length parameter ($w_0$) which are consistently high (EW$_0=140^{+280}_{-70}$ A, $w_0=129^{+11}_{-11}$ A) from z~6 to z~2 and below. However, $w_0$ is anti-correlated with M$_{UV}$ and stellar mass. Our results imply that sources selected as LAEs have a high Lya escape fraction (f$_{esc, Lya}$) irrespective of cosmic time, but f$_{esc, Lya}$ is still higher for UV-fainter and lower mass LAEs. The least massive LAEs ($<10^{9.5}$ M$_{\odot}$) are typically located above the star formation "Main Sequence" (MS), but the offset from the MS decreases towards z~6 and towards $10^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$. Our results imply a lack of evolution in the properties of LAEs across time and reveals the increasing overlap in properties of LAEs and UV-continuum selected galaxies as typical star-forming galaxies at high redshift effectively become LAEs.