Issue |
A&A
Volume 407, Number 1, August III 2003
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 147 - 157 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20030840 | |
Published online | 17 November 2003 |
The Building the Bridge survey for z = 3 Lyα emitting galaxies *
I. Method and first results
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Århus, Ny Munkegade, 8000 Århus C, Denmark
2
Astronomical Observatory, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
3
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Straße 2, 85748, Garching by München, Germany
4
European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile
5
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD21218, USA
Corresponding author: J. P. U. Fynbo, jfynbo@phys.au.dk
Received:
17
March
2003
Accepted:
22
May
2003
We present the first results of an observational programme at
the ESO Very Large Telescope aimed at detecting a large sample
of high-redshift galaxies fainter than the current spectroscopic limit of
for Lyman-Break galaxies. In this paper, we describe the results of
deep narrow and broad-band imaging and subsequent follow-up multi-object
spectroscopy of faint high-redshift galaxies in the fields of the QSOs
BRI 1346-0322 and Q 2138-4427. These QSOs have intervening high neutral
hydrogen column density absorbers, at redshifts
and
respectively, for which redshifted Lyα emission falls within less than
a few Å from the central wavelengths of existing VLT (~60 Å-wide)
narrow-band filters. We selected 37 and 27 candidate emission-line galaxies in
the two fields respectively. Most (~85%) of the candidates have R-band
magnitudes fainter than
. The first spectroscopic follow-up of a
sub-sample of the candidates resulted in 41 confirmed candidates and 4
foreground emission line galaxies (three [
] emitters and one
emitter). The confirmation rate for Lyα emitters is 82% and 68% in the field of BRI 1346-0322 and Q 2138-4427 respectively.
In addition, we serendipitously detect a number of other
emission-line sources on some of the slitlets not used for candidates. Of
these, 9 are also most likely Lyα emitters with redshifts ranging from 1.98 to 3.47. The redshift distribution of confirmed candidates in the field
of BRI 1346-0322 is consistent with being drawn from a uniform distribution
weighted by the filter response curve, whereas the galaxies in the field of
Q 2138-4427 have redshifts clustering very close to the redshift of the
damped Lyα absorber. This latter fact indicates the existence of a
large “pancake”-like structure confirming the earlier suggestions of
Francis & Hewitt ([CITE]).
Key words: cosmology: observations / quasars: individual BRI 1346-0322, Q 2138-4427 / galaxies: high redshift
© ESO, 2003
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