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Published April 2010 | Published
Journal Article Open

Probing ∼L* Lyman-break galaxies at z ≈ 7 in GOODS-South with WFC3 on Hubble Space Telescope

Abstract

We analyse recently acquired near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS)-South field to search for star-forming galaxies at z ≈ 7.0. By comparing Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) 0.98 μm Y-band images with Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) z-band (0.85 μm) images, we identify objects with colours consistent with Lyman-break galaxies at z ≃ 6.4–7.4. This new data cover an area five times larger than that previously reported in the WFC3 imaging of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and affords a valuable constraint on the bright end of the luminosity function. Using additional imaging of the region in the ACS B, V and i bands from GOODS v2.0 and the WFC3J band, we attempt to remove any low-redshift interlopers. Our selection criteria yields six candidates brighter than Y_(AB) = 27.0, of which all except one are detected in the ACS z-band imaging and are thus unlikely to be transients. Assuming all six candidates are at z ≈ 7, this implies a surface density of objects brighter than Y_(AB) = 27.0 of 0.30 ± 0.12 arcmin⁻², a value significantly smaller than the prediction from z≈ 6 luminosity function. This suggests continued evolution of the bright end of the luminosity function between z= 6 and 7, with number densities lower at higher redshift.

Additional Information

© 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS. Accepted 2009 December 4. Received 2009 November 24; in original form 2009 October 22; Published: 20 March 2010. We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their timely response and useful suggestions. Additionally, we thank Mark Lacy for comments given during the construction of the manuscript, and Richard McMahon, Jim Dunlop, Ross McLure, Masami Ouchi, Bahram Mobasher and Michele Cirasuolo for many useful discussions about Lyman-break galaxies at high redshift. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA HST, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with programme GO/DD-11359. We are grateful to the WFC 3 Science Oversight Committee for making their Early Release Science observations public. SMW, DS and ERS acknowledge funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. MJJ acknowledges the support of a RCUK fellowship. SL is supported by the Marie Curie Initial Training Network ELIXIR of the European Commission under contract PITN-GA-2008-214227.

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August 19, 2023
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October 20, 2023