The University of Texas at Austin
Introducing the Texas Euclid Survey for Lyman Alpha (TESLA) survey : initial study correlating galaxy properties to Lyman-alpha emission
Abstract
dc:description.abstractWe present the Texas Euclid Survey for Lyman-Alpha (TESLA), a spectroscopic survey in the 10 deg² of the Euclid North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) field. Using TESLA, we study how the physical properties of Lyman-α emitters (LAEs) correlate with Lyα emission to understand the escape of Lyα from galaxies at redshifts 2 – 3.5. We present an analysis of 43 LAEs performed in the NEP field using early data from the TESLA survey. We use Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging in the grizy-bands, Spitzer/IRAC channels 1 and 2 from the Hawaii 20-deg² (H20) survey and spectra acquired by the Visible Integral-Field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. We perform spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting to compute the galaxy properties of 43 LAEs, and study correlations between stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and dust, to the Lyα rest-frame equivalent width (W [subscript Lyα]). We uncover marginal (1σ significance) correlations between stellar mass and W [subscript Lyα], and star formation rate (SFR) and W [subscript Lyα], with a Spearman correlation coefficient of -0.34 [superscript +.17 over subscript −.14] and -0.37 [superscript +.16 over subscript −.14] respectively. We show that the W [subscript Lyα] distribution of the 43 LAEs is consistent with being drawn from an exponential distribution with an e-folding scale of W₀ = 150 A˚. Once complete the TESLA survey will enable the study of ≳ 50,000 LAEs to more explore correlations between galaxy properties and W [subscript Lyα]. The large sample size will allow the construction of a predictive model for the W [subscript Lyα] as a function of SED-derived galaxy properties, which could be used to improve Lyα-based constraints on reionization.
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Master of Science
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Astronomy
- Grantor
- The University of Texas at Austin
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2024
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Chávez Ortiz, Óscar A.
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Finkelstein, Steve L.
- Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
-
- Chisholm, John
- Casey, Caitlin
- Gebhardt, Karl
Subjects
dc:subject × 4Rights
- Language dc:language.iso
- English
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Identifier URI
- https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/55983
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/129480