@article{11585, abstract = {Observations show that star-forming galaxies reside on a tight three-dimensional plane between mass, gas-phase metallicity and star formation rate (SFR), which can be explained by the interplay between metal-poor gas inflows, SFR and outflows. However, different metals are released on different time-scales, which may affect the slope of this relation. Here, we use central, star-forming galaxies with Mstar = 109.0−10.5 M from the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation to examine three-dimensional relations between mass, SFR and chemical enrichment using absolute and relative C, N, O and Fe abundances. We show that the scatter is smaller when gas-phase α-enhancement is used rather than metallicity. A similar plane also exists for stellar α-enhancement, implying that present-day specific SFRs are correlated with long time-scale star formation histories. Between z = 0 and 1, the α-enhancement plane is even more insensitive to redshift than the plane using metallicity. However, it evolves at z > 1 due to lagging iron yields. At fixed mass, galaxies with higher SFRs have star formation histories shifted toward late times, are more α-enhanced and this α-enhancement increases with redshift as observed. These findings suggest that relations between physical properties inferred from observations may be affected by systematic variations in α-enhancements.}, author = {Matthee, Jorryt J}, issn = {2397-3366}, journal = {Nature Astronomy}, keywords = {Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies, formation - galaxies, evolution - galaxies, star formation - galaxies, abundances}, pages = {984--985}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Differences in galaxy colours are not just about the mass}}, doi = {10.1038/s41550-021-01415-y}, volume = {5}, year = {2021}, } @article{11501, abstract = {We investigated the ultraviolet (UV) spectral properties of faint Lyman-α emitters (LAEs) in the redshift range 2.9 ≤ z ≤ 4.6, and we provide material to prepare future observations of the faint Universe. We used data from the MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Survey to construct mean rest-frame spectra of continuum-faint (median MUV of −18 and down to MUV of −16), low stellar mass (median value of 108.4 M⊙ and down to 107 M⊙) LAEs at redshift z ≳ 3. We computed various averaged spectra of LAEs, subsampled on the basis of their observational (e.g., Lyα strength, UV magnitude and spectral slope) and physical (e.g., stellar mass and star-formation rate) properties. We searched for UV spectral features other than Lyα, such as higher ionization nebular emission lines and absorption features. We successfully observed the O III]λ1666 and [C III]λ1907+C III]λ1909 collisionally excited emission lines and the He IIλ1640 recombination feature, as well as the resonant C IVλλ1548,1551 doublet either in emission or P-Cygni. We compared the observed spectral properties of the different mean spectra and find the emission lines to vary with the observational and physical properties of the LAEs. In particular, the mean spectra of LAEs with larger Lyα equivalent widths, fainter UV magnitudes, bluer UV spectral slopes, and lower stellar masses show the strongest nebular emission. The line ratios of these lines are similar to those measured in the spectra of local metal-poor galaxies, while their equivalent widths are weaker compared to the handful of extreme values detected in individual spectra of z >  2 galaxies. This suggests that weak UV features are likely ubiquitous in high z, low-mass, and faint LAEs. We publicly released the stacked spectra, as they can serve as empirical templates for the design of future observations, such as those with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope.}, author = {Feltre, Anna and Maseda, Michael V. and Bacon, Roland and Pradeep, Jayadev and Leclercq, Floriane and Kusakabe, Haruka and Wisotzki, Lutz and Hashimoto, Takuya and Schmidt, Kasper B. and Blaizot, Jeremy and Brinchmann, Jarle and Boogaard, Leindert and Cantalupo, Sebastiano and Carton, David and Inami, Hanae and Kollatschny, Wolfram and Marino, Raffaella A. and Matthee, Jorryt J and Nanayakkara, Themiya and Richard, Johan and Schaye, Joop and Tresse, Laurence and Urrutia, Tanya and Verhamme, Anne and Weilbacher, Peter M.}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies: evolution / galaxies: high-redshift / ISM: lines and bands / ultraviolet: ISM / ultraviolet: galaxies}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey: XV. The mean rest-UV spectra of Lyα emitters at z > 3}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202038133}, volume = {641}, year = {2020}, } @article{11503, abstract = {Context. The Lyα emitter (LAE) fraction, XLAE, is a potentially powerful probe of the evolution of the intergalactic neutral hydrogen gas fraction. However, uncertainties in the measurement of XLAE are still under debate. Aims. Thanks to deep data obtained with the integral field spectrograph Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), we can measure the evolution of the LAE fraction homogeneously over a wide redshift range of z ≈ 3–6 for UV-faint galaxies (down to UV magnitudes of M1500 ≈ −17.75). This is a significantly fainter range than in former studies (M1500 ≤ −18.75) and it allows us to probe the bulk of the population of high-redshift star-forming galaxies. Methods. We constructed a UV-complete photometric-redshift sample following UV luminosity functions and measured the Lyα emission with MUSE using the latest (second) data release from the MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey. Results. We derived the redshift evolution of XLAE for M1500 ∈ [ − 21.75; −17.75] for the first time with a equivalent width range EW(Lyα) ≥ 65 Å and found low values of XLAE ≲ 30% at z ≲ 6. The best-fit linear relation is XLAE = 0.07+0.06−0.03z − 0.22+0.12−0.24. For M1500 ∈ [ − 20.25; −18.75] and EW(Lyα) ≥ 25 Å, our XLAE values are consistent with those in the literature within 1σ at z ≲ 5, but our median values are systematically lower than reported values over the whole redshift range. In addition, we do not find a significant dependence of XLAE on M1500 for EW(Lyα) ≥ 50 Å at z ≈ 3–4, in contrast with previous work. The differences in XLAE mainly arise from selection biases for Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) in the literature: UV-faint LBGs are more easily selected if they have strong Lyα emission, hence XLAE is biased towards higher values when those samples are used. Conclusions. Our results suggest either a lower increase of XLAE towards z ≈ 6 than previously suggested, or even a turnover of XLAE at z ≈ 5.5, which may be the signature of a late or patchy reionization process. We compared our results with predictions from a cosmological galaxy evolution model. We find that a model with a bursty star formation (SF) can reproduce our observed LAE fractions much better than models where SF is a smooth function of time.}, author = {Kusakabe, Haruka and Blaizot, Jérémy and Garel, Thibault and Verhamme, Anne and Bacon, Roland and Richard, Johan and Hashimoto, Takuya and Inami, Hanae and Conseil, Simon and Guiderdoni, Bruno and Drake, Alyssa B. and Christian Herenz, Edmund and Schaye, Joop and Oesch, Pascal and Matthee, Jorryt J and Anna Marino, Raffaella and Borello Schmidt, Kasper and Pelló, Roser and Maseda, Michael and Leclercq, Floriane and Kerutt, Josephine and Mahler, Guillaume}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, dark ages / reionization / first stars / early Universe / cosmology: observations / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: high-redshift / intergalactic medium}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey: XIV. Evolution of the Lyα emitter fraction from z = 3 to z = 6}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/201937340}, volume = {638}, year = {2020}, } @article{11499, abstract = {Deep optical spectroscopic surveys of galaxies provide a unique opportunity to investigate rest-frame ultra-violet (UV) emission line properties of galaxies at z ∼ 2 − 4.5. Here we combine VLT/MUSE Guaranteed Time Observations of the Hubble Deep Field South, Ultra Deep Field, COSMOS, and several quasar fields with other publicly available data from VLT/VIMOS and VLT/FORS2 to construct a catalogue of He II λ1640 emitters at z ≳ 2. The deepest areas of our MUSE pointings reach a 3σ line flux limit of 3.1 × 10−19 erg s−1 cm−2. After discarding broad-line active galactic nuclei, we find 13 He II λ1640 detections from MUSE with a median MUV = −20.1 and 21 tentative He II λ1640 detections from other public surveys. Excluding Lyα, all except two galaxies in our sample show at least one other rest-UV emission line, with C III] λ1907, λ1909 being the most prominent. We use multi-wavelength data available in the Hubble legacy fields to derive basic galaxy properties of our sample through spectral energy distribution fitting techniques. Taking advantage of the high-quality spectra obtained by MUSE (∼10 − 30 h of exposure time per pointing), we use photo-ionisation models to study the rest-UV emission line diagnostics of the He II λ1640 emitters. Line ratios of our sample can be reproduced by moderately sub-solar photo-ionisation models, however, we find that including effects of binary stars lead to degeneracies in most free parameters. Even after considering extra ionising photons produced by extreme sub-solar metallicity binary stellar models, photo-ionisation models are unable to reproduce rest-frame He II λ1640 equivalent widths (∼0.2 − 10 Å), thus additional mechanisms are necessary in models to match the observed He II λ1640 properties.}, author = {Nanayakkara, Themiya and Brinchmann, Jarle and Boogaard, Leindert and Bouwens, Rychard and Cantalupo, Sebastiano and Feltre, Anna and Kollatschny, Wolfram and Marino, Raffaella Anna and Maseda, Michael and Matthee, Jorryt J and Paalvast, Mieke and Richard, Johan and Verhamme, Anne}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies: ISM / galaxies: star formation / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: high-redshift}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{Exploring He II λ1640 emission line properties at z ∼2−4}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/201834565}, volume = {648}, year = {2019}, } @article{11507, abstract = {Lyman-α (Lyα) is intrinsically the brightest line emitted from active galaxies. While it originates from many physical processes, for star-forming galaxies the intrinsic Lyα luminosity is a direct tracer of the Lyman-continuum (LyC) radiation produced by the most massive O- and early-type B-stars (M⋆ ≳ 10 M⊙) with lifetimes of a few Myrs. As such, Lyα luminosity should be an excellent instantaneous star formation rate (SFR) indicator. However, its resonant nature and susceptibility to dust as a rest-frame UV photon makes Lyα very hard to interpret due to the uncertain Lyα escape fraction, fesc, Lyα. Here we explore results from the CAlibrating LYMan-α with Hα (CALYMHA) survey at z = 2.2, follow-up of Lyα emitters (LAEs) at z = 2.2 − 2.6 and a z ∼ 0−0.3 compilation of LAEs to directly measure fesc, Lyα with Hα. We derive a simple empirical relation that robustly retrieves fesc, Lyα as a function of Lyα rest-frame EW (EW0): fesc,Lyα = 0.0048 EW0[Å] ± 0.05 and we show that it constrains a well-defined anti-correlation between ionisation efficiency (ξion) and dust extinction in LAEs. Observed Lyα luminosities and EW0 are easy measurable quantities at high redshift, thus making our relation a practical tool to estimate intrinsic Lyα and LyC luminosities under well controlled and simple assumptions. Our results allow observed Lyα luminosities to be used to compute SFRs for LAEs at z ∼ 0−2.6 within ±0.2 dex of the Hα dust corrected SFRs. We apply our empirical SFR(Lyα,EW0) calibration to several sources at z ≥ 2.6 to find that star-forming LAEs have SFRs typically ranging from 0.1 to 20 M⊙ yr−1 and that our calibration might be even applicable for the most luminous LAEs within the epoch of re-ionisation. Our results imply high ionisation efficiencies (log10[ξion/Hz erg−1] = 25.4−25.6) and low dust content in LAEs across cosmic time, and will be easily tested with future observations with JWST which can obtain Hα and Hβ measurements for high-redshift LAEs.}, author = {Sobral, David and Matthee, Jorryt J}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies: high-redshift / galaxies: star formation / galaxies: statistics / galaxies: evolution / galaxies: formation / galaxies: ISM}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{Predicting Lyα escape fractions with a simple observable: Lyα in emission as an empirically calibrated star formation rate indicator}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/201833075}, volume = {623}, year = {2019}, } @article{11572, abstract = {We present spectroscopic follow-up of candidate luminous Ly α emitters (LAEs) at z = 5.7–6.6 in the SA22 field with VLT/X-SHOOTER. We confirm two new luminous LAEs at z = 5.676 (SR6) and z = 6.532 (VR7), and also present HST follow-up of both sources. These sources have luminosities LLy α ≈ 3 × 1043 erg s−1, very high rest-frame equivalent widths of EW0 ≳ 200 Å and narrow Ly α lines (200–340 km s−1). VR7 is the most UV-luminous LAE at z > 6.5, with M1500 = −22.5, even brighter in the UV than CR7. Besides Ly α, we do not detect any other rest-frame UV lines in the spectra of SR6 and VR7, and argue that rest-frame UV lines are easier to observe in bright galaxies with low Ly α equivalent widths. We confirm that Ly α line widths increase with Ly α luminosity at z = 5.7, while there are indications that Ly α lines of faint LAEs become broader at z = 6.6, potentially due to reionization. We find a large spread of up to 3 dex in UV luminosity for >L⋆ LAEs, but find that the Ly α luminosity of the brightest LAEs is strongly related to UV luminosity at z = 6.6. Under basic assumptions, we find that several LAEs at z ≈ 6–7 have Ly α escape fractions ≳ 100  per cent, indicating bursty star formation histories, alternative Ly α production mechanisms, or dust attenuating Ly α emission differently than UV emission. Finally, we present a method to compute ξion, the production efficiency of ionizing photons, and find that LAEs at z ≈ 6–7 have high values of log10(ξion/Hz erg−1) ≈ 25.51 ± 0.09 that may alleviate the need for high Lyman-Continuum escape fractions required for reionization.}, author = {Matthee, Jorryt J and Sobral, David and Darvish, Behnam and Santos, Sérgio and Mobasher, Bahram and Paulino-Afonso, Ana and Röttgering, Huub and Alegre, Lara}, issn = {1365-2966}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies: evolution – galaxies: high-redshift, dark ages, reionization, first stars, cosmology: observations}, number = {1}, pages = {772--787}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Spectroscopic properties of luminous Ly α emitters at z ≈ 6–7 and comparison to the Lyman-break population}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx2061}, volume = {472}, year = {2017}, } @article{11520, abstract = {We present the spatially resolved Hα dynamics of 16 star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 0.81 using the new KMOS multi-object integral field spectrograph on the ESO Very Large Telescope. These galaxies, selected using 1.18 μm narrowband imaging from the 10 deg2 CFHT-HiZELS survey of the SA 22 hr field, are found in a ∼4 Mpc overdensity of Hα emitters and likely reside in a group/intermediate environment, but not a cluster. We confirm and identify a rich group of star-forming galaxies at z = 0.813 ± 0.003, with 13 galaxies within 1000 km s−1 of each other, and seven within a diameter of 3 Mpc. All of our galaxies are “typical” star-forming galaxies at their redshift, 0.8 ± 0.4 SFR$^*_{z = 0.8}$, spanning a range of specific star formation rates (sSFRs) of 0.2–1.1 Gyr−1 and have a median metallicity very close to solar of 12 + log(O/H) = 8.62 ± 0.06. We measure the spatially resolved Hα dynamics of the galaxies in our sample and show that 13 out of 16 galaxies can be described by rotating disks and use the data to derive inclination corrected rotation speeds of 50–275 km s−1. The fraction of disks within our sample is 75% ± 8%, consistent with previous results based on Hubble Space Telescope morphologies of Hα-selected galaxies at z ∼ 1 and confirming that disks dominate the SFR density at z ∼ 1. Our Hα galaxies are well fitted by the z ∼ 1–2 Tully–Fisher (TF) relation, confirming the evolution seen in the zero point. Apart from having, on average, higher stellar masses and lower sSFRs, our group galaxies at z = 0.81 present the same mass–metallicity and TF relation as z ∼ 1 field galaxies and are all disk galaxies.}, author = {Sobral, D. and Swinbank, A. M. and Stott, J. P. and Matthee, Jorryt J and Bower, R. G. and Smail, Ian and Best, P. and Geach, J. E. and Sharples, R. M.}, issn = {1538-4357}, journal = {The Astrophysical Journal}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, galaxies: evolution – galaxies, high-redshift – galaxies, starburst}, number = {2}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{The dynamics of z=0.8 H-alpha-selected star-forming galaxies from KMOS/CF-HiZELS}}, doi = {10.1088/0004-637x/779/2/139}, volume = {779}, year = {2013}, }