A Narrowband Imaging Survey for High Redshift Galaxies in the Near Infrared
Abstract
A narrowband imaging survey of 276 square minutes of arc was carried out at near-infrared wavelengths to search for emission line objects at high redshifts. Most of the fields contained a known quasar or radio galaxy at a redshift that placed one of the strong, restframe optical emission lines (Hα, [O III], Hβ, or [O II]) in the bandpass of the narrowband filter. The area weighted line flux limit over the entire survey was 3.4 x 10^-16^ erg cm^-2^ s^-1^ (3σ), while the most sensitive limits reached 1.4 x 10^-16^ erg cm^-2^ s^-1^. Integrating the volume covered by all four optical emission lines in each image yields a total comoving volume surveyed of 1.4 x 10^5^ Mpc^3^. Considering only Hα emission in the K band (2.05 < z < 2.65), where the survey is most sensitive, the survey covered a comoving volume of 3.0 x 10^4^ Mpc^3^ to a volume-weighted average star formation rate of 112 M_sun_ yr^-1^ (for H_0_ = 50 km s^-1^ Mpc^-1^, {OMEGA}_0_ = 1). This is the most extensive near-infrared survey which is deep enough to have a reasonable chance at detecting strong line emission from an actively star-forming population of galaxies, when measured against simple models of galaxy formation. One emission line candidate was identified in this survey, and subsequently confirmed spectroscopically.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 1996
- DOI:
- 10.1086/118141
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/9610135
- Bibcode:
- 1996AJ....112.1794T
- Keywords:
-
- INFRARED: GALAXIES;
- QUASARS: EMISSION LINES;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- To appear in the Astronomical Journal, November 1996. 23 pages, including 2 tables and 7 figures