A 1.4 deg^2 blind survey for CII], CIII] and CIV at z~0.7-1.5. I:Nature, morphologies and equivalent widths

While traditionally associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN), the properties of the CII], CIII] and CIV emission lines are still uncertain as large, unbiased samples of sources are scarce. We present the first blind, statistical study of CII], CIII] and CIV emitters at $z\sim0.68,1.05,1.53$, respectively, uniformly selected down to a flux limit of $\sim4\times10^{-17}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-1}$ through a narrow band survey covering an area of $\sim1.4$ deg$^2$ over COSMOS and UDS. We detect 16 CII], 35 CIII] and 17 CIV emitters, whose nature we investigate using optical colours as well as HST, X-ray, radio and far infra-red data. We find that $z\sim0.7$ CII] emitters are consistent with a mixture of blue (UV slope $\beta=-2.0\pm0.4$) star forming galaxies with disky HST structure and AGN with Seyfert-like morphologies. Bright CII] emitters have individual X-ray detections as well as high average black hole accretion rates (BHAR) of $\sim0.1$ $M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$. CIII] emitters at $z\sim1.05$ trace a general population of SF galaxies, with $\beta=-0.8\pm1.1$, a variety of optical morphologies, including isolated and interacting galaxies and low BHAR (