Letter to the Editor

Reanalysis of the spectrum of the z = 10 galaxy

Astrophysics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London SW7 2BW, UK e-mail: stephen.weatherley@imperial.ac.uk

Received: 26 July 2004
Accepted: 2 November 2004

Abstract

In a recent paper Pelló et al. reported observations of a faint galaxy, gravitationally lensed by the galaxy cluster Abell 1835. Deep J-band spectroscopy revealed a weak emission line near 1.34 microns, detected in two spectra with different central wavelengths. The line was interpreted as Lyα at redshift . This interpretation is supported by the broad-band photometric spectral energy distribution, and by the location of the galaxy close to the lens critical line for this redshift. We have reanalysed the two spectra, just released from the data archive. Our analysis includes allowance for wavelength shifts due to transverse drift of the object in the slit. We do not detect a significant emission line at the reported location, or nearby, at either grating setting, nor in the combined spectrum. We provide a possible explanation for the reported detection as due to spurious positive flux introduced in the sky-subtraction stage as a result of variable hot pixels. We provide our final reduced 2D frame, and corresponding error array.