JADES: The production and escape of ionizing photons from faint Lyman-alpha emitters in the epoch of reionization
JADES: The production and escape of ionizing photons from faint Lyman-alpha emitters in the epoch of reionization
Apr 5, 2024·,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Aayush Saxena
Andrew J. Bunker
Gareth C. Jones
Daniel P. Stark
Alex J. Cameron
Joris Witstok
Santiago Arribas
William M. Baker
Stefi Baum
Rachana Bhatawdekar
Rebecca Bowler
Kristan Boyett
Stefano Carniani
Stephane Charlot
Jacopo Chevallard
Mirko Curti
Emma Curtis-Lake
Daniel J. Eisenstein
Ryan Endsley
Kevin Hainline
Jakob M. Helton
Benjamin D. Johnson
Nimisha Kumari
Tobias J. Looser
Roberto Maiolino
Marcia Rieke
Hans-Walter Rix
Brant E. Robertson
Lester Sandles
Charlotte Simmonds
Renske Smit
Sandro Tacchella
Christina C. Williams
Christopher N. A. Willmer
Chris Willott
Abstract
We present the properties of
faint
emitting galaxies (LAEs) at
from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) spectroscopic data in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field/GOODS-S. These LAEs span a redshift range
and a UV magnitude range
to
, with the
equivalent width (EW) in the range
. The detection of other rest-optical emission lines in the spectra of these LAEs enables the determination of accurate systemic redshifts and
velocity offsets, as well as the physical and chemical composition of their stars and interstellar media. These faint LAEs are consistent with metal-poor systems with high ionization parameters, similar to the general galaxy population at
. We measured an average ionizing photon production efficiency,
across our LAEs, which does not evolve strongly with redshift. We report an anti-correlation between the
escape fraction and the velocity offset from systemic redshift, consistent with model expectations. We further find that the strength and velocity offset of
are neither correlated with galaxy spectroscopic properties nor with
. We find a decrease in
escape fractions with redshift, indicative of decreasing sizes of ionized bubbles around LAEs at high redshifts. We used a range of galaxy properties to predict Lyman continuum escape fractions for our LAEs, finding that the ionizing photon output into the intergalactic medium from our LAEs remains roughly constant across the observed
EW, showing a mild increase at fainter UV magnitudes and at higher redshifts. We derived correlations between the ionizing photon output from LAEs and their UV magnitudes,
strengths and redshifts, which can be used to constrain the ionizing photon contribution of LAEs at
towards cosmic reionization.
Type
Publication
Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 684, id.A84, 24 pages
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