Spectroscopy of z similar to 7 candidate galaxies: using Lyman alpha to constrain the neutral fraction of hydrogen in the high-redshift universe

Caruana, J
Bunker, AJ
Wilkins, SM
Stanway, ER
Lorenzoni, S
Jarvis, MJ
Ebert, H

Open link

Publication date

October 2014

DOI

10.1093/mnras/stu1341

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Journal

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Abstract

Following our previous spectroscopic observations of z > 7 galaxies with Gemini/Gemini Near Infra-Red Spectrograph (GNIRS) and Very Large Telescope (VLT)/XSHOOTER, which targeted a total of eight objects,we present here our results froma deeper and largerVLT/FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (FORS2) spectroscopic sample of Wide Field Camera 3 selected z>7 candidate galaxies.With our FORS2 setup we cover the 737-1070 nm wavelength range, enabling a search for Lyman α in the redshift range spanning 5.06-7.80. We target 22 z-band dropouts and nd no evidence of Lyman α emission, with the exception of a tentative detection (<5σ, which is our adopted criterion for a secure detection) for one object. The upper limits on Lyman α ux and the broad-band ...