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Boötes-HiZELS: an optical to near-infrared survey of emission-line galaxies at z = 0.4–4.7

We present a sample of similar to 1000 emission-line galaxies at z = 0.4-4.7 from the similar to 0.7deg(2) High-z Emission-Line Survey in the Bootes field identified with a suite of six narrow-band filters at approximate to 0.4-2.1 mu m. These galaxies have been selected on their Ly alpha (73), [O (II)] (285), H beta/[O (III)] (387) or H alpha (362) emission line, and have been classified with optical to near-infrared colours. A subsample of 98 sources have reliable redshifts from multiple narrow-band (e.g. [O (II)]-H alpha) detections and/or spectroscopy. In this survey paper, we present the observations, selection and catalogues of emitters. We measure number densities of Ly alpha, [O (II)], H beta/[O (III)] and H alpha and confirm strong luminosity evolution in star-forming galaxies from z similar to 0.4 to similar to 5, in agreement with previous results. To demonstrate the usefulness of dual-line emitters, we use the sample of dual [O (II)]-H alpha emitters to measure the observed [O (II)]/H alpha ratio at z = 1.47. The observed [O (II)]/H alpha ratio increases significantly from 0.40 +/- 0.01 at z = 0.1 to 0.52 +/- 0.05 at z = 1.47, which we attribute to either decreasing dust attenuation with redshift, or due to a bias in the (typically) fibre measurements in the local Universe that only measure the central kpc regions. At the bright end, we find that both the H alpha and Ly alpha number densities at z approximate to 2.2 deviate significantly from a Schechter form, following a power law. We show that this is driven entirely by an increasing X-ray/active galactic nucleus fraction with line luminosity, which reaches approximate to 100 per cent at line luminosities L greater than or similar to 3 x 10(44) erg s(-1).

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/625736
Date10 1900
CreatorsMatthee, Jorryt, Sobral, David, Best, Philip, Smail, Ian, Bian, Fuyan, Darvish, Behnam, Röttgering, Huub, Fan, Xiaohui
ContributorsUniv Arizona, Steward Observ
PublisherOXFORD UNIV PRESS
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle
Rights© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
Relationhttps://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mnras/stx1569

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