Lyα-Lyman continuum connection in 3.5 ≤ z ≤ 4.3 star-forming galaxies from the VUDS survey^★

¹ INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, 00040 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
e-mail: francesca.marchi@oa-roma.inaf.it
² Aix–Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, UMR 7326, 13388 Marseille, France
³ Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva, ch. des Maillettes 51, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
⁴ Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie - IRAP, CNRS, Université de Toulouse, UPS-OMP, 14 avenue É. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
⁵ INAF–IASF Milano, via Bassini 15, 20133, Milano, Italy
⁶ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁷ Instituto de Fisica y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, Chile
⁸ INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁹ Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616, USA
¹⁰ National Center for Nuclear Research, ul. Hoza 69, 00-681 Warszawa, Poland
¹¹ Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK
¹² Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
¹³ Nùcleo de Astronomìa, Facultad de Ingenierìa, Universidad Diego Portales, Av. Ejèrcito 441, Santiago, Chile

Received: 19 October 2017
Accepted: 25 January 2018

Abstract

Context. To identify the galaxies responsible for the reionization of the Universe, we must rely on the investigation of the Lyman continuum (LyC) properties of z ≲ 5 star-forming galaxies, where we can still directly observe their ionizing radiation.

Aims. The aim of this work is to explore the correlation between the LyC emission and some of the proposed indirect indicators of LyC radiation at z ~ 4 such as a bright Lyα emission and a compact UV continuum size.

Methods. We selected a sample of 201 star-forming galaxies from the Vimos Ultra Deep Survey (VUDS) at 3.5 ≤ z ≤ 4.3 in the COSMOS, ECDFS, and VVDS-2h fields, including only those with reliable spectroscopic redshifts, a clean spectrum in the LyC range and clearly not contaminated by bright nearby sources in the same slit. For all galaxies we measured the Lyα EW, the Lyα velocity shift with respect to the systemic redshift, the Lyα spatial extension and the UV continuum effective radius. We then selected different sub-samples according to the properties predicted to be good LyC emission indicators: in particular we created sub-samples of galaxies with EW(Lyα) ≥ 70 Å, Lyα_ext ≤ 5.7 kpc, r_UV ≤ 0.30 kpc and |Δv_Lyα|≤ 200 km s⁻¹. We stacked all the galaxies in each sub-sample and measured the flux density ratio (f_λ(895)∕f_λ(1470)), that we considered to be a proxy for LyC emission. We then compared these ratios to those obtained for the complementary samples. Finally, to estimate the statistical contamination from lower redshift inter-lopers in our samples, we performed dedicated Monte Carlo simulations using an ultradeep U-band image of the ECDFS field.

Results. We find that the stacks of galaxies which are UV compact (r_UV ≤ 0.30 kpc) and have bright Lyα emission (EW(Lyα) ≥ 70 Å), have much higher LyC fluxes compared to the rest of the galaxy population. These parameters appear to be good indicators of LyC radiation in agreement with theoretical studies and previous observational works. In addition we find that galaxies with a low Lyα spatial extent (Lyα_ext ≤ 5.7 kpc) have higher LyC flux compared to the rest of the population. Such a correlation had never been analysed before and seems even stronger than the correlation with high EW(Lyα) and small r_UV. These results assume that the stacks from all sub-samples present the same statistical contamination from lower redshift interlopers. If we subtract a statistical contamination from low redshift interlopers obtained with the simulations from the flux density ratios (f_λ(895)∕f_λ(1470)) of the significant sub-samples we find that these samples contain real LyC leaking flux with a very high probability, although the true average escape fractions are very uncertain.

Conclusions. Our work indicates that galaxies with very high EW(Lyα), small Ly α_ext and small r_UV are very likely the best candidates to show Lyman continuum radiation at z ~ 4 and could therefore be the galaxies that have contributed most to reionisation.