HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1—Stacking 50,000 Lyman Alpha Emitters ∗

Davis, Dustin; Gebhardt, Karl; Cooper, Erin Mentuch; Bowman, William P.; Garcia Castanheira, Barbara; Chisholm, John; Ciardullo, Robin; Fabricius, Maximilian; Farrow, Daniel J.; Finkelstein, Steven L.; Gronwall, Caryl; Gawiser, Eric; Hill, Gary J.; Hopp, Ulrich; House, Lindsay R.; Jeong, Donghui; Kollatschny, Wolfram; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Liu, Chenxu; Niemeyer, Maja Lujan; Saldana-Lopez, Alberto; Saito, Shun; Schneider, Donald P.; Snigula, Jan; Tuttle, Sarah; Weiss, Laurel H.; Wisotzki, Lutz; Zeimann, Gregory

Abstract

We describe the ensemble properties of the 1.9 < z < 3.5 Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) found in the HETDEX survey's first public data release, HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1. Stacking the low-resolution (R ∼ 800) spectra greatly increases the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), revealing spectral features otherwise hidden by noise, and we show that the stacked spectrum is representative of an average member of the set. The flux-limited, Lyα S/N restricted stack of 50,000 HETDEX LAEs shows the ensemble biweight averagez ∼ 2.6 LAE to be a blue (UV continuum slope ∼ −2.4 and E(B – V) < 0.1), moderately bright (MUV ∼ −19.7) star-forming galaxy with strong Lyα emission (log LLyα ∼ 42.8 and Wλ(Lyα) ∼ 114 Å), and potentially significant leakage of ionizing radiation. The rest-frame UV light is dominated by a young, metal-poor stellar population with an average age of 5–15 Myr and metallicity of 0.2–0.3 Z⊙.

Citation

Davis, D., Gebhardt, K., Cooper, E. M., Bowman, W. P., Garcia Castanheira, B., Chisholm, J., …Zeimann, G. (2023). HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1—Stacking 50,000 Lyman Alpha Emitters ∗. The Astrophysical journal, 954(2), Article 209. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ace4c2

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 2, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Sep 7, 2023
• Publication Date: Sep 10, 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 29, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 7, 2024
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0004-637X
• Electronic ISSN: 1538-4357
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 954
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 209
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ace4c2
• Keywords: Catalogs; Emission line galaxies; Lyman-alpha galaxies; Redshift surveys
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4394416