The Lyman Continuum Escape Survey: Ionizing Radiation from [O III]-Strong Sources at a Redshift of 3.1. (arXiv:1806.01741v2 [astro-ph.GA] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Fletcher_T/0/1/0/all/0/1">Thomas J. Fletcher</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Tang_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Mengtao Tang</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Robertson_B/0/1/0/all/0/1">Brant E. Robertson</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Nakajima_K/0/1/0/all/0/1">Kimihiko Nakajima</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ellis_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">Richard S. Ellis</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Stark_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">Daniel P. Stark</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Inoue_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Akio Inoue</a>
We present results from the LymAn Continuum Escape Survey (LACES), a Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) program designed to characterize the ionizing radiation
emerging from a sample of Lyman alpha emitting galaxies at redshift $zsimeq
3.1$. As many show intense [O III] emission characteristic of $z>6.5$
star-forming galaxies, they may represent valuable low redshift analogs of
galaxies in the reionization era. Using HST Wide Field Camera 3 / UVIS $F336W$
to image Lyman continuum emission, we investigate the escape fraction of
ionizing photons in this sample. For 61 sources, of which 77% are
spectroscopically confirmed and 53 have measures of [O III] emission, we detect
Lyman continuum leakage in 20%, a rate significantly higher than is seen in
individual continuum-selected Lyman break galaxies. We estimate there is a 98%
probability that $leq 2$ of our detections could be affected by foreground
contamination. Fitting multi-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to take
account of the varying stellar populations, dust extinctions and metallicities,
we derive individual Lyman continuum escape fractions corrected for foreground
intergalactic absorption. We find escape fractions of 15 to 60% for individual
objects, and infer an average 20% escape fraction by fitting composite SEDs for
our detected samples. Surprisingly however, even a deep stack of those sources
with no individual $F336W$ detections provides a stringent upper limit on the
average escape fraction of less than 0.5%. We examine various correlations with
source properties and discuss the implications in the context of the popular
picture that cosmic reionization is driven by such compact, low metallicity
star-forming galaxies.
We present results from the LymAn Continuum Escape Survey (LACES), a Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) program designed to characterize the ionizing radiation
emerging from a sample of Lyman alpha emitting galaxies at redshift $zsimeq
3.1$. As many show intense [O III] emission characteristic of $z>6.5$
star-forming galaxies, they may represent valuable low redshift analogs of
galaxies in the reionization era. Using HST Wide Field Camera 3 / UVIS $F336W$
to image Lyman continuum emission, we investigate the escape fraction of
ionizing photons in this sample. For 61 sources, of which 77% are
spectroscopically confirmed and 53 have measures of [O III] emission, we detect
Lyman continuum leakage in 20%, a rate significantly higher than is seen in
individual continuum-selected Lyman break galaxies. We estimate there is a 98%
probability that $leq 2$ of our detections could be affected by foreground
contamination. Fitting multi-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to take
account of the varying stellar populations, dust extinctions and metallicities,
we derive individual Lyman continuum escape fractions corrected for foreground
intergalactic absorption. We find escape fractions of 15 to 60% for individual
objects, and infer an average 20% escape fraction by fitting composite SEDs for
our detected samples. Surprisingly however, even a deep stack of those sources
with no individual $F336W$ detections provides a stringent upper limit on the
average escape fraction of less than 0.5%. We examine various correlations with
source properties and discuss the implications in the context of the popular
picture that cosmic reionization is driven by such compact, low metallicity
star-forming galaxies.
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