The Sunburst Arc: Direct Lyman α escape observed in the brightest known lensed galaxy^⋆

¹ Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Postboks 1029, 0315 Oslo, Norway
e-mail: eriveth@astro.uio.no
² MIT-Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Research, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
³ Observational Cosmology Lab, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
⁴ Las Cumbres Observatory, 6740 Cortona Dr, Goleta, CA 93117, USA

Received: 25 October 2017
Accepted: 19 November 2017

Abstract

We present rest-frame ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy of the brightest lensed galaxy yet discovered, at redshift z = 2.4. The source reveals a characteristic triple-peaked Lyman α profile that has been predicted in various theoretical works, but to our knowledge has not been unambiguously observed previously. The feature is well fit by a superposition of two components: a double-peak profile emerging from substantial radiative transfer, and a narrow, central component resulting from directly escaping Lyman α photons, but it is poorly fit by either component alone. We demonstrate that the feature is unlikely to contain contamination from nearby sources, and that the central peak is unaffected by radiative transfer effects except for very slight absorption. The feature is detected at signal-to-noise ratios exceeding 80 per pixel at line center, and bears strong resemblance to synthetic profiles predicted by numerical models.