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Issue A&A
Volume 430, Number 2, February I 2005
Page(s) L21 - L24
Section Letters
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:200400126



A&A 430, L21-L24 (2005)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200400126

Letter

The Wide Field Imager Lyman-Alpha Search (WFILAS) for galaxies at redshift ~5.7

I. A spatially compact Ly $\alpha$ emitting galaxy at redshift 5.721
E. Westra1, D. Heath Jones1, C. E. Lidman2, R. M. Athreya3, K. Meisenheimer4, C. Wolf5, T. Szeifert2, E. Pompei2 and L. Vanzi2

1  Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Australian National University, Weston Creek ACT 2611, Australia
    e-mail: [westra;heath]@mso.anu.edu.au
2  European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile
    e-mail: [clidman;tszeifer;epompei;lvanzi]@eso.org
3  National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Pune University Campus, Post Bag 3, Ganeshkhind Pune 411007, India
    e-mail: rathreya@ncra.tifr.res.in
4  Max Planck Institute für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
    e-mail: meise@mpia.de
5  Department of Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH, UK
    e-mail: cwolf@astro.ox.ac.uk

(Received 1 October 2004 / Accepted 26 November 2004)

Abstract
We report the spectroscopic confirmation of a compact Ly $\alpha$ emitting galaxy at z=5.721. A FORS2 spectrum of the source shows a strong asymmetric line with a flux of $5\times 10^{-17}$ erg s -1 cm -2, making it one of the brightest Ly $\alpha$ emitting galaxies at this redshift, and a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 400 km s -1. We also have a tentative detection of a second, narrower component that is redshifted by 400 km s -1 with respect to the main peak. A FORS2 image shows that the source is compact, with a FWHM of 0 $\farcs$5, which corresponds to 3.2 kpc at this redshift. This source is a brighter example of J1236.8+6215 (Dawson et al. 2002, ApJ, 570, 92), another Ly $\alpha$ emit ting galaxy at $z\sim5.2$.


Key words: galaxies: high-redshift -- galaxies: evolution -- galaxies: starburst -- galaxies: individual: J114334.98-014433.9

SIMBAD Objects



© ESO 2005

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