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We study the spectrophotometric properties of a highly magnified () pair of stellar systems identified at z = 3.2222 behind the Hubble Frontier Field galaxy cluster MACS J0416. Five multiple images (out of six) have been spectroscopically confirmed by means of VLT/MUSE and VLT/X-Shooter observations. Each image includes two faint (), young ( Myr), low-mass ( ), low-metallicity (12 + Log(O/H) ≃ 7.7, or 1/10 solar), and compact (30 pc effective radius) stellar systems separated by pc after correcting for lensing amplification. We measured several rest-frame ultraviolet and optical narrow ( km s−1) high-ionization lines. These features may be the signature of very hot ( K) stars within dense stellar clusters, whose dynamical mass is likely dominated by the stellar component. Remarkably, the ultraviolet metal lines are not accompanied by Lyα emission (e.g., C iv/Lyα ), despite the fact that the Lyα line flux is expected to be 150 times brighter (inferred from the Hβ flux). A spatially offset, strongly magnified () Lyα emission with a spatial extent kpc2 is instead identified 2 kpc away from the system. The origin of such a faint emission could be the result of fluorescent Lyα induced by a transverse leakage of ionizing radiation emerging from the stellar systems and/or may be associated with an underlying and barely detected object (with de-lensed). This is the first confirmed metal-line emitter at such low-luminosity and redshift without Lyα emission—suggesting that, at least in some cases, a non-uniform covering factor of the neutral gas might hamper the Lyα detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform Lyman-α (Lyα) Monte-Carlo radiative transfer calculations on a suite of 2500 models of multiphase, outflowing media, which are characterized by 14 parameters. We focus on the Lyα spectra emerging from these media and investigate which properties are dominant in shaping the emerging Lyα profile. Multiphase models give rise to a wide variety of emerging spectra, including single-, double-, and triple-peaked spectra. We find that the dominant parameters in shaping the spectra include (i) the cloud covering factor, fc, which is in agreement with earlier studies, and (ii) the temperature and number density of residual H i in the hot ionized medium. We attempt to reproduce spectra emerging from multiphase models with “shell models” which are commonly used to fit observed Lyα spectra, and investigate the connection between shell-model parameters and the physical parameters of the clumpy media. In shell models, the neutral hydrogen content of the shell is one of the key parameters controlling Lyα radiative transfer. Because Lyα spectra emerging from multiphase media depend much less on the neutral hydrogen content of the clumps, the shell-model parameters such as H i column density (but also shell velocity and dust content) are generally not well matched to the associated physical parameters of the clumpy media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outflows promote the escape of Lyman-α (Lyα) photons from dusty interstellar media. The process of radiative transfer through interstellar outflows is often modeled by a spherically symmetric, geometrically thin shell of neutral gas that scatters photons emitted by a central Lyα source. Despite its simplified geometry, this “shell model” has been surprisingly successful at reproducing observed Lyα line shapes. In this paper, we perform automated line fitting on a set of noisy simulated shell-model spectra in order to determine whether degeneracies exist between the different shell-model parameters. While there are some significant degeneracies, we find that most parameters are accurately recovered, especially the H i column density (NH i) and outflow velocity (vexp). This work represents an important first step in determining how the shell-model parameters relate to the actual physical properties of Lyα sources. To aid further exploration of the parameter space, we have made our simulated model spectra available through an interactive online tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]