The Low-Redshift Lyman Continuum Survey: Optically Thin and Thick Mg II Lines as Probes of Lyman Continuum Escape

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that Mg II spectral lines can serve as effective indirect indicators for the escape of Lyman continuum photons in local star-forming galaxies, expanding the understanding of galaxy properties related to photon escape.

Contribution

It provides the first large-sample analysis showing correlations between Mg II profiles and LyC escape, enabling better selection of galaxies with high photon escape fractions.

Findings

Mg II emission correlates with Ly-alpha escape fraction.

Strong Mg II emitters tend to be LyC leakers.

Mg II lines can estimate LyC escape fraction within a factor of 3.

Abstract

The Mg II 2796, 2803 doublet has been suggested to be a useful indirect indicator for the escape of Ly-alpha and Lyman continuum (LyC) photons in local star-forming galaxies. However, studies to date have focused on small samples of galaxies with strong Mg II or strong LyC emission. Here we present the first study of Mg II probing a large dynamic range of galaxy properties, using newly obtained high signal-to-noise, moderate-resolution spectra of Mg II for a sample of 34 galaxies selected from the Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey. We show that the galaxies in our sample have Mg II profiles ranging from strong emission to P-Cygni profiles, and to pure absorption. We find there is a significant trend (with a possibility of spurious correlations of ~ 2%) that galaxies detected as strong LyC Emitters (LCEs) also show larger equivalent widths of Mg II emission, and non-LCEs tend to show evidence of more scattering and absorption features in Mg II We then find Mg II strongly correlates with Ly-alpha in both equivalent width and escape fraction, regardless of whether the emission or absorption dominates the Mg II profiles. Furthermore, we present that, for galaxies categorized as Mg II emitters (MgE), one can adopt the information of Mg II, metallicity, and dust to estimate the escape fraction of LyC within a factor of 3. These findings confirm that Mg II lines can be used as a tool to select galaxies as LCEs and to serve as an indirect indicator for the escape of Ly-alpha and LyC.