Luminous Z~3 Lyman Break Galaxies in the Deep and Wide Field Surveys


Thursday, 10 October 2013 9 a.m. — 10 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
FUYAN BIAN (Mt. Stromlo Observatory, ANU and NOAO South Visiting Astronomer)

I will present a survey of luminous z~3 Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) in the NOAO Bootes fields. Our new U-band survey with the 2x8.4m large binocular telescope, combined with the existing NOAO Bootes field survey, enables us to establish a sample of 15,000 photometrically-selected LBGs at z~3 in the 9 square degree survey area. We study UV luminosity function, stellar mass function and clustering of luminous z~3 LBGs. Our results, together with other from high-z LBG samples, are used to test the gas stream-fed (cold/hot flows) models and put strong constraints on the star formation efficiency and star formation history in high-z galaxies. Furthermore, Our survey also reveal a population of the most luminous LBGs at z~3. With L> 5L* and star formation rate (SFR) ~500 M/yr, these spectroscopically-confirmed LBGs are some of the rarest and most intensive star forming systems in the early Universe. We expect to build up a large sample of high-z luminous LBGs in the ongoing DES and upcoming LSST survey.