CANDELSz7: a large spectroscopic survey of CANDELS galaxies in the reionization epoch

We present the results of CANDELSz7, a European Southern Observatory (ESO) Large Program aimed at spectroscopically confirming a homogeneous sample of z ≃ 6 and z ≃ 7 star forming galaxies. The candidates were selected in the GOODS-South, UDS, and COSMOS fields using the official CANDELS catalogs ba...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) 2018-11, Vol.619, p.A147
Main Authors: Pentericci, L., Vanzella, E., Castellano, M., Fontana, A., De Barros, S., Grazian, A., Marchi, F., Bradac, M., Conselice, C. J., Cristiani, S., Dickinson, M., Finkelstein, S. L., Giallongo, E., Guaita, L., Koekemoer, A. M., Maiolino, R., Santini, P., Tilvi, V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
dark ages
Emissions
European Southern Observatory
first stars
Galactic evolution
Galaxies
galaxies: distances and redshifts
galaxies: high-redshift
Ionization
Photometry
Red shift
reionization
Spectroscopy
Star formation
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Summary:We present the results of CANDELSz7, a European Southern Observatory (ESO) Large Program aimed at spectroscopically confirming a homogeneous sample of z ≃ 6 and z ≃ 7 star forming galaxies. The candidates were selected in the GOODS-South, UDS, and COSMOS fields using the official CANDELS catalogs based on H160-band detections. Standard color criteria, which were tailored depending on the ancillary multi-wavelength data available for each field, were applied to select more than 160 candidate galaxies at z ≃ 6 and z ≃ 7. Deep, medium-resolution FORS2 spectroscopic observations were then conducted with integration times ranging from 12 to 20 h to reach a Lyα flux limit of approximately 1 − 3 × 10−18 erg s−1 cm−2 at 3σ. We could determine a spectroscopic redshift for about 40% of the galaxies, mainly through the detection of a single emission line that we interpret as Lyα emission, or for some of the brightest objects (H160 ≤ 25.5) from the presence of faint continuum and a sharp drop that we interpret as a Lyα break. In this paper we present the redshifts and main properties of 65 newly confirmed high-redshift galaxies. Adding previous proprietary and archival data we assemble a sample of ≃260 galaxies that we use to explore the evolution of the Lyα fraction in Lyman break galaxies and the change in the shape of the emission line between z ∼ 6 and z ∼ 7. We also discuss the accuracy of the CANDELS photometric redshifts in this redshift range.
ISSN:0004-6361
1432-0746
DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/201732465