Search

We have carried out follow-up spectroscopy on three overdense regions of g- and r-dropout galaxies in the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields, finding two new protoclusters at z = 4.898 and 3.721 and a possible protocluster at z = 3.834. The z = 3.721 protocluster overlaps with a previously identified protocluster at z = 3.675. The redshift separation between these two protoclusters is Δz = 0.05, which is slightly larger than the size of typical protoclusters. Therefore, if they are not the progenitors of a >1015M☉ halo, they would grow into closely located independent halos like a supercluster. The other protocluster at z = 4.898 is also surrounded by smaller galaxy groups. These systems including protoclusters and neighboring groups are regarded as the early phase of superclusters. We quantify the spatial distribution of member galaxies of the protoclusters at z = 3.675 and 3.721 by fitting triaxial ellipsoids, finding a tentative difference: one has a pancake-like shape, while the other is filamentary. This could indicate that these two protoclusters are in different stages of formation. We investigate the relation between redshift and the velocity dispersion of protoclusters, including other protoclusters from the literature, in order to compare their dynamical states. Although there is no significant systematic trend in the velocity dispersions of protoclusters with redshift, the distribution is skewed to higher velocity dispersion over the redshift range of z = 2–6. This could be interpreted as two phases of cluster formation, one dominated by the steady accretion of galaxies and the other by the merging between group-size halos, perhaps depending on the surrounding large-scale environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report 14 and 26 protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 and 6.6 over 14 and 16 deg2 areas, respectively, selected from 2230 (259) Lyα emitters (LAEs) photometrically (spectroscopically) identified using Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) deep images (Keck, Subaru, and Magellan spectra, and literature data). Six out of the 40 protocluster candidates include one to 13 spectroscopically confirmed LAEs. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to estimate how many protocluster candidates are found by chance for randomly distributed sources, and find that the effective number of protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 (6.6) is six (five). By comparing with the cosmological Lyα radiative transfer (RT) model reproducing the LAEs with reionization effects, we find that more than half of these protocluster candidates are progenitors of present-day clusters with mass of . We then investigate the correlation between the LAE overdensity δ and the Lyα rest-frame equivalent width , because the cosmological Lyα RT model suggests that the slope of the –δ relation steepens toward the epoch of cosmic reionization (EoR), due to the existence of ionized bubbles around galaxy overdensities easing the escape of Lyα emission from the partly neutral intergalactic medium. The available HSC data suggest that the slope of the –δ correlation does not evolve from the post-reionization epoch, z = 5.7, to the EoR, z = 6.6, beyond the moderately large statistical errors. There is a possibility that we could detect the evolution of the –δ relation from z = 5.7 to 7.3 using the upcoming HSC observations that will provide large samples of LAEs at z = 6.6–7.3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of a survey of the brightest UV-selected galaxies in protoclusters. These proto-brightest cluster galaxy (proto-BCG) candidates are drawn from 179 overdense regions of g-dropout galaxies at z ∼ 4 from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program identified previously as good protocluster candidates. This study is the first to extend the systematic study of the progenitors of BCGs from z ∼ 2 to z ∼ 4. We carefully remove possible contaminants from foreground galaxies and, for each structure, select the brightest galaxy that is at least 1 mag brighter than the fifth-brightest galaxy. We select 63 proto-BCG candidates and compare their properties with those of galaxies in the field and those of other galaxies in overdense structures. The proto-BCG candidates and their surrounding galaxies have different rest-UV color (i − z) distributions to field galaxies and other galaxies in protoclusters that do not host proto-BCGs. In addition, galaxies surrounding proto-BCGs are brighter than those in protoclusters without proto-BCGs. The image stacking analysis reveals that the average effective radius of proto-BCGs is ∼28% larger than that of field galaxies. The i − z color differences suggest that proto-BCGs and their surrounding galaxies are dustier than other galaxies at z ∼ 4. These results suggest that specific environmental effects or assembly biases have already emerged in some protoclusters as early as z ∼ 4, and we suggest that proto-BCGs have different star formation histories than other galaxies in the same epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have carried out deep and wide field imaging observations with narrow bands, targeting 11 quasar fields to systematically study the possible photoevaporation effect of quasar radiation on surrounding low mass galaxies at z ∼ 2–3. We focused on Lyα emitters (LAEs) at the same redshifts as quasars that lie within the quasar proximity zones, where the UV radiation from the quasars is higher than the average background at that epoch. We found that LAEs with high rest-frame equivalent width of Lyα emission (EW0) of ≳150 Å with low stellar mass (≲108M⊙) are predominantly scarce in the quasar proximity zones, suggesting that quasar photoevaporation effects may be taking place. The halo mass of LAEs with EW0 > 150 Å is estimated to be either from spectral energy distribution fitting or the main sequence. Based on a hydrodynamical simulation, the predicted delay in star formation under a local UV background intensity with erg s−1 cm−2 Hz−1 sr−1 for galaxies having less than this halo mass is about >20 Myr, which is longer than the expected age of LAEs with EW0 > 150 Å. On the other hand, photoevaporation seems to be less effective around very luminous quasars, which is consistent with the idea that these are still in an early stage of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combined deep U-band and optical/near-infrared imaging, in order to select Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) at using U − V and colors in the Subaru Deep Field. The resulting sample of 5161 LBGs gives a UV luminosity function (LF) down to , with a steep faint-end slope of . We analyze UV-to-NIR energy distributions (SEDs) from optical photometry and photometry on IR median-stacked images. In the stacks, we find a systematic background depression centered on the LBGs. This results from the difficulty of finding faint galaxies in regions with higher-than-average surface densities of foreground galaxies, so we corrected for this deficit. Best-fit stellar population models for the LBG SEDs indicate stellar masses and star formation rates of and M⊙ yr−1 at , down to and yr−1 at . The faint LBGs show a ∼1 mag excess over the stellar continuum in K-band. We interpret this excess flux as redshifted [O iii] lines. The observed excesses imply equivalent widths that increase with decreasing mass, reaching Å (rest-frame). Such strong [O iii] emission is seen only in a miniscule fraction of local emission-line galaxies, but is probably universal in the faint galaxies that reionized the universe. Our halo occupation distribution analysis of the angular correlation function gives a halo mass of for the full sample of LBGs, and for the brightest half of the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of clustering analyses of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at , 4, and 5 using the final data release of the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). Deep- and wide-field images of the CFHTLS Deep Survey enable us to obtain sufficiently accurate two-point angular correlation functions to apply a halo occupation distribution analysis. The mean halo masses, calculated as , increase with the stellar-mass limit of LBGs. The threshold halo mass to have a central galaxy, follows the same increasing trend as the low-z results, whereas the threshold halo mass to have a satellite galaxy, M1, shows higher values at than , over the entire stellar mass range. Satellite fractions of dropout galaxies, even at less massive halos, are found to drop sharply, from z = 2 down to less than 0.04, at . These results suggest that satellite galaxies form inefficiently within dark halos at , even for less massive satellites with . We compute stellar-to-halo mass ratios (SHMRs) assuming a main sequence of galaxies, which is found to provide SHMRs consistent with those derived from a spectral energy distribution fitting method. The observed SHMRs are in good agreement with model predictions based on the abundance-matching method, within confidence intervals. We derive observationally, for the first time, , which is the halo mass at a peak in the star-formation efficiency, at , and it shows a small increasing trend with cosmic time at . In addition, and its normalization are found to be almost unchanged during . Our study provides observational evidence that galaxy formation is ubiquitously most efficient near a halo mass of over cosmic time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the discovery of three protoclusters at z ∼ 3–4 with spectroscopic confirmation in the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields. In these fields, we investigate the large-scale projected sky distribution of z ∼ 3–6 Lyman-break galaxies and identify 21 protocluster candidates from regions that are overdense at more than 4σ overdensity significance. Based on cosmological simulations, it is expected that more than 76% of these candidates will evolve into a galaxy cluster of at least a halo mass of 1014M⊙ at z = 0. We perform follow-up spectroscopy for eight of the candidates using Subaru/FOCAS, Keck II/DEIMOS, and Gemini-N/GMOS. In total we target 462 dropout candidates and obtain 138 spectroscopic redshifts. We confirm three real protoclusters at z = 3–4 with more than five members spectroscopically identified and find one to be an incidental overdense region by mere chance alignment. The other four candidate regions at z ∼ 5–6 require more spectroscopic follow-up in order to be conclusive. A z = 3.67 protocluster, which has 11 spectroscopically confirmed members, shows a remarkable core-like structure composed of a central small region (<0.5 physical Mpc) and an outskirts region (∼1.0 physical Mpc). The Lyα equivalent widths of members of the protocluster are significantly smaller than those of field galaxies at the same redshift, while there is no difference in the UV luminosity distributions. These results imply that some environmental effects start operating as early as at z ∼ 4 along with the growth of the protocluster structure. This study provides an important benchmark for our analysis of protoclusters in the upcoming Subaru/HSC imaging survey and its spectroscopic follow-up with the Subaru/PFS that will detect thousands of protoclusters up to z ∼ 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]