A Survey for Hα emitting galaxies AT z ~= 2.2
Abstract
The deepest survey for Hα emitting galaxies at z ~= 2.2 has recently been made in narrow-band (~= 1%) filters around 2.1μm using SOFI at the ESO NTT telescope. An effective area of ~= 100 sq. arcmin and a comoving volume of 9000 Mpc^3 (for H_0 = 50, q_0 = 0.5) has been covered to a volume weighted 3 σ line flux limit of ~= 5 × 10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2. Our survey covered the WFPC2 and STIS fields in the Hubble Deep Field South and an anonymous field about 30 deg. away. The faintest limit reached was 3 × 10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2 on the WFPC2 field. In total, 10 convincing candidates with deduced star formation rates in the range 9 - 50 Msolar/yr and an equal number of marginal ones have been identified for confirmation and follow-up spectroscopy with ISAAC at the VLT. Based on a very preliminary analysis we compare our results with those of earlier surveys and briefly discuss some possible implications for the form of the evolution out to z ~= 2 and the effects of clustering.
- Publication:
-
Astrophysics and Space Science
- Pub Date:
- 1999
- Bibcode:
- 1999Ap&SS.266..255M