| Issue |
A&A
Volume 405, Number 2, July II 2003
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | L19 - L22 | |
| Section | Letters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20030760 | |
| Published online | 19 June 2003 | |
Letter to the Editor
Discovery of a z = 6.17 galaxy from CFHT and VLT observations*
1
European Southern Observatory, Paranal, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile
2
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France
3
Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Italy
4
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation, Hawaii, USA
Corresponding author: J.-G. Cuby, jcuby@eso.org
Received:
1
April
2003
Accepted:
19
May
2003
We report the discovery of a galaxy at a redshift 
identified from deep narrow band imaging and spectroscopic follow-up
in one of the CFHT-VIRMOS deep survey fields at 0226-04. In addition
to the existing deep BVRI images of this field, we obtained a very deep
narrow band image at 920 nm with the aim of detecting Lyα emission
at redshift ~6.5.
Spectroscopic follow-up of some of the candidates selected on the basis
of their excess flux in the NB920 filter was performed at the
VLT-UT4 with the FORS2 instrument. For one object a strong and asymmetric
emission line associated with a strong break in continuum
emission is identified as Lyα at .
This galaxy was selected from its continuum emission in the
920 nm filter and not from its Lyα emission, in effect
performing a Lyman Break detection at .
We estimate a star formation
rate of several tens of 
yr-1 for this object,
with a velocity dispersion ~400 km s-1.
The spectroscopic follow-up of other high z galaxy candidates
is on-going.
Key words: galaxies: high-redshift / early Universe / techniques: spectroscopic
Based on observations collected at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope operated by the National Research Council of Canada, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France and the University of Hawaii (Programme 01BF1) and on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Paranal, Chile (ESO Programme 70.A-0513).
© ESO, 2003
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