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Karl Gebhardt

Publications and source records attributed to Karl Gebhardt.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2024

Absorption Troughs of Lyman Alpha Emitters in HETDEX

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is designed to detect and measure the redshifts of more than one million Ly$α$ emitting galaxies (LAEs) between $1.88 < z < 3.52$. In addition to its cosmological measurements, these data enable studies of Ly$α$ spectral profiles and the underlying radiative transfer. Using the roughly half a million LAEs in the HETDEX Data Release 3, we stack various subsets to obtain the typical Ly$α$ profile for the $z \sim 2-3$ epoch and to understand their physical properties. We find clear absorption wings around Ly$α$ emission, which extend $\sim 2000$ km $\mathrm{s}^{-1}$ both redward and blueward of the central line. Using far-UV spectra of nearby ($0.002 < z < 0.182$) LAEs in the CLASSY treasury and optical/near-IR spectra of $2.8 < z < 6.7$ LAEs in the MUSE-Wide survey, we observe absorption profiles in both redshift regimes. Dividing the sample by volume density shows that the troughs increase in higher density regions. This trend suggests that the depth of the absorption is dependent on the local density of objects near the LAE, a geometry that is similar to damped Lyman-$α$ systems. Simple simulations of Ly$α$ radiative transfer can produce similar troughs due to absorption of light from background sources by HI gas surrounding the LAEs.

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arXiv2023

The Pre-explosion Environments and The Progenitor of SN 2023ixf from the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX)

Supernova (SN) 2023ixf was discovered on May 19th, 2023. The host galaxy, M101, was observed by the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) collaboration over the period April 30, 2020 -- July 10, 2020, using the Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS; $3470\lesssimλ\lesssim5540$ Å) on the 10-m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). The fiber filling factor within $\pm$ 30 arcsec of SN 2023ixf is 80% with a spatial resolution of 1 arcsec. The r<5.5 arcsec surroundings are 100% covered. This allows us to analyze the spatially resolved pre-explosion local environments of SN 2023ixf with nebular emission lines. The 2-dimensional (2D) maps of the extinction and the star-formation rate (SFR) surface density ($Σ_{\rm SFR}$) show weak increasing trends in the radial distributions within the r<5.5 arcsec regions, suggesting lower values of extinction and SFR in the vicinity of the progenitor of SN 2023ixf. The median extinction and that of the surface density of SFR within r<3 arcsec are $E(B-V)=0.06\pm0.14$, and $Σ_{\rm SFR}=10^{-5.44\pm0.66}~\rm M_{\odot}\cdot yr^{-1}\cdot arcsec^{-2}$. There is no significant change in extinction before and after the explosion. The gas metallicity does not change significantly with the separation from SN 2023ixf. The metal-rich branch of the $R_{23}$ calculations indicates that the gas metallicity around SN 2023ixf is similar to the solar metallicity ($\sim Z_{\odot}$). The archival deep images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) show a clear detection of the progenitor of SN 2023ixf in the $z$-band at $22.778\pm0.063$ mag, but non-detections in the remaining four bands of CFHTLS ($u,g,r,i$). The results suggest a massive progenitor of $\approx$ 22 $M_\odot$.

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arXiv2023

ALMA gas-dynamical mass measurement of the supermassive black hole in the red nugget relic galaxy PGC 11179

We present 0$.\!\!^{\prime\prime}22$-resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of CO(2$-$1) emission from the circumnuclear gas disk in the red nugget relic galaxy PGC 11179. The disk shows regular rotation, with projected velocities near the center of 400 km s$^{-1}$. We assume the CO emission originates from a dynamically cold, thin disk and fit gas-dynamical models directly to the ALMA data. In addition, we explore systematic uncertainties by testing the impacts of various model assumptions on our results. The supermassive black hole (BH) mass ($M_\mathrm{BH}$) is measured to be $M_\mathrm{BH} = (1.91\pm0.04$ [$1σ$ statistical] $^{+0.11}_{-0.51}$ [systematic])$\times 10^9$ $M_\odot$, and the $H$-band stellar mass-to-light ratio $M/L_H=1.620\pm0.004$ [$1σ$ statistical] $^{+0.211}_{-0.107}$ [systematic] $M_\odot/L_\odot$. This $M_\mathrm{BH}$ is consistent with the BH mass$-$stellar velocity dispersion relation but over-massive compared to the BH mass$-$bulge luminosity relation by a factor of 3.7. PGC 11179 is part of a sample of local compact early-type galaxies that are plausible relics of $z\sim2$ red nuggets, and its behavior relative to the scaling relations echoes that of three relic galaxy BHs previously measured with stellar dynamics. These over-massive BHs could suggest BHs gain most of their mass before their host galaxies do. However, our results could also be explained by greater intrinsic scatter at the high-mass end of the scaling relations, or by systematic differences in gas- and stellar-dynamical methods. Additional $M_\mathrm{BH}$ measurements in the sample, including independent cross-checks between molecular gas- and stellar-dynamical methods, will advance our understanding of the co-evolution of BHs and their host galaxies.

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arXiv2023

HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1 -- Stacking 50K Lyman Alpha Emitters

We describe the ensemble properties of the $1.9 < z < 3.5$ Lyman Alpha Emitters (LAEs) found in the HETDEX survey's first public data release, HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1 (Mentuch Cooper et al. 2023). Stacking the low-resolution ($R \sim$ 800) spectra greatly increases the signal-to-noise ratio, revealing spectral features otherwise hidden by noise, and we show that the stacked spectrum is representative of an average member of the set. The flux limited, Ly$α$ signal-to-noise ratio restricted stack of 50K HETDEX LAEs shows the ensemble biweight ``average" $z \sim 2.6$ LAE to be a blue (UV continuum slope $\sim -2.4$ and E(B-V) $< 0.1$), moderately bright (M$_{\text{UV}} \sim -19.7$) star forming galaxy with strong Ly$α$ emission (log $L_{Lyα}$ $\sim$ 42.8 and $W_λ$(Ly$α$) $\sim$ 114Å), and potentially significant leakage of ionizing radiation. The restframe UV light is dominated by a young, metal poor stellar population with an average age 5-15 Myr and metallicity of 0.2-0.3 Z$_{\odot}$.

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arXiv2023

The LIGO HET Response (LIGHETR) Project to Discover and Spectroscopically Follow Optical Transients Associated with Neutron Star Mergers

The LIGO HET Response (LIGHETR) project is an enterprise to follow up optical transients (OT) discovered as gravitational wave merger sources by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration (LVC). Early spectroscopy has the potential to constrain crucial parameters such as the aspect angle. The LIGHETR collaboration also includes the capacity to model the spectroscopic evolution of mergers to facilitate a real-time direct comparison of models with our data. The principal facility is the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. LIGHETR uses the massively-replicated VIRUS array of spectrographs to search for associated OTs and obtain early blue spectra and in a complementary role, the low-resolution LRS-2 spectrograph is used to obtain spectra of viable candidates as well as a densely-sampled series of spectra of true counterparts. Once an OT is identified, the anticipated cadence of spectra would match or considerably exceed anything achieved for GW170817 = AT2017gfo for which there were no spectra in the first 12 hours and thereafter only roughly once daily. We describe special HET-specific software written to facilitate the program and attempts to determine the flux limits to undetected sources. We also describe our campaign to follow up OT candidates during the third observational campaign of the LIGO and Virgo Scientific Collaborations. We obtained VIRUS spectroscopy of candidate galaxy hosts for 5 LVC gravitational wave events and LRS-2 spectra of one candidate for the OT associated with S190901ap. We identified that candidate, ZTF19abvionh = AT2019pip, as a possible Wolf-Rayet star in an otherwise unrecognized nearby dwarf galaxy.

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arXiv2023

Cosmological-Scale Lyman-alpha Forest Absorption Around Galaxies and AGN Probed with the HETDEX and SDSS Spectroscopic Data

We present cosmological-scale 3-dimensional (3D) neutral hydrogen ({\sc Hi}) tomographic maps at $z=2-3$ over a total of 837 deg$^2$ in two blank fields that are developed with Ly$α$ forest absorptions of 14,736 background Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars at $z$=2.08-3.67. Using the tomographic maps, we investigate the large-scale ($\gtrsim 10$ $h^{-1}$cMpc) average {\sc Hi} radial profiles and two-direction profiles of the line-of-sight (LoS) and transverse (Trans) directions around galaxies and AGN at $z=2-3$ identified by the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy eXperiment (HETDEX) and SDSS surveys, respectively. The peak of the {\sc Hi} radial profile around galaxies is lower than the one around AGN, suggesting that the dark-matter halos of galaxies are less massive on average than those of AGN. The LoS profile of AGN is narrower than the Trans profile, indicating the Kaiser effect. There exist weak absorption outskirts at $\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc beyond {\sc Hi} structures of galaxies and AGN found in the LoS profiles that can be explained by the {\sc Hi} gas at $\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc falls toward the source positions. Our findings indicate that the {\sc Hi} radial profile of AGN has transitions from proximity zones ($\lesssim$ a few $h^{-1}$cMpc) to the {\sc Hi} structures ($\sim 1-30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc) and the weak absorption outskirts ($\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc). Although there is no significant dependence of AGN types (type-1 vs. type-2) on the {\sc Hi} profiles, the peaks of the radial profiles anti-correlate with AGN luminosities, suggesting that AGN's ionization effects are stronger than the gas mass differences.

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arXiv2023

Using Dark Energy Explorers and Machine Learning to Enhance the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment

We present analysis using a citizen science campaign to improve the cosmological measures from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). The goal of HETDEX is to measure the Hubble expansion rate, $H(z)$, and angular diameter distance, $D_A(z)$, at $z =$ 2.4, each to percent-level accuracy. This accuracy is determined primarily from the total number of detected Lyman-$α$ emitters (LAEs), the false positive rate due to noise, and the contamination due to [O II] emitting galaxies. This paper presents the citizen science project, Dark Energy Explorers, with the goal of increasing the number of LAEs, decreasing the number of false positives due to noise and the [O II] galaxies. Initial analysis shows that citizen science is an efficient and effective tool for classification most accurately done by the human eye, especially in combination with unsupervised machine learning. Three aspects from the citizen science campaign that have the most impact are 1) identifying individual problems with detections, 2) providing a clean sample with 100% visual identification above a signal-to-noise cut, and 3) providing labels for machine learning efforts. Since the end of 2022, Dark Energy Explorers has collected over three and a half million classifications by 11,000 volunteers in over 85 different countries around the world. By incorporating the results of the Dark Energy Explorers we expect to improve the accuracy on the $D_A(z)$ and $H(z)$ parameters at $z =$ 2.4 by 10 - 30%. While the primary goal is to improve on HETDEX, Dark Energy Explorers has already proven to be a uniquely powerful tool for science advancement and increasing accessibility to science worldwide.

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arXiv2023

Introducing the Texas Euclid Survey for Lyman Alpha (TESLA) Survey: Initial Study Correlating Galaxy Properties to Lyman-Alpha Emission

We present the Texas Euclid Survey for Lyman-Alpha (TESLA), a spectroscopic survey in the 10 square degree of the Euclid North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) field. Using TESLA, we study how the physical properties of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) correlate with Lyman-alpha emission to understand the escape of Lyman alpha from galaxies at redshifts 2 -- 3.5. We present an analysis of 43 LAEs performed in the NEP field using early data from the TESLA survey. We use Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging in the grizy-bands, Spitzer/IRAC channels 1 and 2 from the Hawaii 20 square degree (H20) survey and spectra acquired by the Visible Integral-Field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. We perform spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting to compute the galaxy properties of 43 LAEs, and study correlations between stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and dust, to the Lyman-alpha rest-frame equivalent widths (EW). We uncover marginal (1 sigma significance) correlations between stellar mass and Lyman-alpha EW, and star formation rate (SFR) and Lyman-alpha EW, with a Spearman correlation coefficient of -0.$34_{-.14}^{+.17}$ and -0.$37_{-.14}^{+.16}$ respectively. We show that the Lyman-alpha distribution of the 43 LAEs is consistent with being drawn from an exponential distribution with an e-folding scale of 150 Angstrom. Once complete the TESLA survey will enable the study of ~ thousands of LAEs to explore correlations between galaxy properties and Lyman-alpha EW. The large sample size will allow the construction of a predictive model for the Lyman-alpha EW as a function of SED-derived galaxy properties, which could be used to improve Lyman-alpha based constraints on reionization.

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arXiv2023

The Stellar Mass - Black Hole Mass Relation at $z\sim2$ Down to $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}\sim10^7 M_\odot$ Determined by HETDEX

We investigate the stellar mass - black hole mass ($\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$) relation with type 1 AGN down to $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}=10^7 M_\odot$, corresponding to a $\simeq -21$ absolute magnitude in rest-frame ultraviolet (UV), at $z = 2-2.5$. Exploiting the deep and large-area spectroscopic survey of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), we identify 66 type 1 AGN with $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$ ranging from $10^7$ to $10^{10} M_\odot$ that are measured with single-epoch virial method using C{\sc iv} emission lines detected in the HETDEX spectra. $\mathcal{M}_*$ of the host galaxies are estimated from optical to near-infrared photometric data taken with Spitzer, WISE, and ground-based 4-8m class telescopes by CIGALE SED fitting. We further assess the validity of SED fitting in two cases by host-nuclear decomposition performed through surface brightness profile fitting on spatially-resolved host galaxies with JWST/NIRCam CEERS data. We obtain the $\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$ relation covering the unexplored low-mass ranges of $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}~\sim~10^7-10^8~M_\odot$, and conduct forward modelling to fully account for the selection biases and observational uncertainties. The intrinsic $\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$ relation at $z\sim 2$ has a moderate positive offset of $0.52\pm0.14$~dex from the local relation, suggestive of more efficient black hole growth at higher redshift even in the low-mass regime of $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}~\sim~10^7-10^8~M_\odot$. Our $\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$ relation is inconsistent with the $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}$ suppression at the low-$\mathcal{M}_*$ regime predicted by recent hydrodynamic simulations at a $98\%$ confidence level, suggesting that feedback in the low-mass systems may be weaker than those produced in hydrodynamic simulations.

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arXiv2023

Identifying Active Galactic Nuclei at $z\sim3$ from the HETDEX Survey Using Machine Learning

We used data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) to study the incidence of AGN in continuum-selected galaxies at $z\sim3$. From optical and infrared imaging in the 24 deg$^{2}$ Spitzer HETDEX Exploratory Large Area (SHELA) survey, we constructed a sample of photometric-redshift selected $z\sim3$ galaxies. We extracted HETDEX spectra at the position of 716 of these sources and used machine learning methods to identify those which exhibited AGN-like features. The dimensionality of the spectra was reduced using an autoencoder, and the latent space was visualized through t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE). Gaussian mixture models were employed to cluster the encoded data and a labeled dataset was used to label each cluster as either AGN, stars, high-redshift galaxies, or low-redshift galaxies. Our photometric redshift (photo-z) sample was labeled with an estimated $92\%$ overall accuracy, an AGN accuracy of $83\%$, and an AGN contamination of $5\%$. The number of identified AGN was used to measure an AGN fraction for different magnitude bins. The UV absolute magnitude where the AGN fraction reaches $50\%$ is $M_{UV} = -23.8$. When combined with results in the literature, our measurements of AGN fraction imply that the bright end of the galaxy luminosity function exhibits a power-law rather than exponential decline, with a relatively shallow faint-end slope for the $z\sim3$ AGN luminosity function.

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arXiv2023

HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1: 220K Sources Including Over 50K Lyman Alpha Emitters from an Untargeted Wide-area Spectroscopic Survey

We present the first publicly released catalog of sources obtained from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). HETDEX is an integral field spectroscopic survey designed to measure the Hubble expansion parameter and angular diameter distance at 1.88<z<3.52 by using the spatial distribution of more than a million Ly-alpha-emitting galaxies over a total target area of 540 deg^2. The catalog comes from contiguous fiber spectra coverage of 25 deg^2 of sky from January 2017 through June 2020, where object detection is performed through two complementary detection methods: one designed to search for line emission and the other a search for continuum emission. The HETDEX public release catalog is dominated by emission-line galaxies and includes 51,863 Lyα-emitting galaxy (LAE) identifications and 123,891 OII-emitting galaxies at z<0.5. Also included in the catalog are 37,916 stars, 5274 low-redshift (z<0.5) galaxies without emission lines, and 4976 active galactic nuclei. The catalog provides sky coordinates, redshifts, line identifications, classification information, line fluxes, OII and Ly-alpha line luminosities where applicable, and spectra for all identified sources processed by the HETDEX detection pipeline. Extensive testing demonstrates that HETDEX redshifts agree to within deltaz < 0.02, 96.1% of the time to those in external spectroscopic catalogs. We measure the photometric counterpart fraction in deep ancillary Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging and find that only 55.5% of the LAE sample has an r-band continuum counterpart down to a limiting magnitude of r~26.2 mag (AB) indicating that an LAE search of similar sensitivity with photometric pre-selection would miss nearly half of the HETDEX LAE catalog sample. Data access and details about the catalog can be found online at http://hetdex.org/.

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arXiv2023

The HETDEX Survey: Emission Line Exploration and Source Classification

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is an untargeted spectroscopic survey that aims to measure the expansion rate of the Universe at $z \sim 2.4$ to 1% precision for both $H(z)$ and $D_A(z)$. HETDEX is in the process of mapping in excess of one million Lyman Alpha emitting (LAE) galaxies and a similar number of lower-z galaxies as a tracer of the large-scale structure. The success of the measurement is predicated on the post-observation separation of galaxies with Ly$α$ emission from the lower-$z$ interloping galaxies, primarily [OII], with low contamination and high recovery rates. The Emission Line eXplorer (ELiXer) is the principal classification tool for HETDEX, providing a tunable balance between contamination and completeness as dictated by science needs. By combining multiple selection criteria, ELiXer improves upon the 20 Angstrom rest-frame equivalent width cut commonly used to distinguish LAEs from lower-$z$ [OII] emitting galaxies. Despite a spectral resolving power, R $\sim800$, that cannot resolve the [OII] doublet, we demonstrate the ability to distinguish LAEs from foreground galaxies with 98.1% accuracy. We estimate a contamination rate of Ly$α$ by [OII] of 1.2% and a Ly$α$ recovery rate of 99.1% using the default ELiXer configuration. These rates meet the HETDEX science requirements.

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arXiv2022

A Search for Lensed Lyman-Alpha Emitters within the Early HETDEX Data Set

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is a large-volume spectroscopic survey without pre-selection of sources, searching ~ 540 deg^2 for Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) at 1.9 < z < 3.5. Taking advantage of such a wide-volume survey, we perform a pilot study using early HETDEX data to search for lensed Lyman-alpha emitters. After performing a proof-of-concept using a previously known lensed LAE covered by HETDEX, we perform a search for previously unknown lensed LAEs in the HETDEX spectroscopic sample. We present a catalog of 26 potential LAEs lensed by foreground, red, non-star-forming galaxies at z ~ 0.4 - 0.7. We estimate the magnification for each candidate system, finding 12 candidates to be within the strong lensing regime (magnification $μ$ > 2). Follow-up observations of these potential lensed LAEs have the potential to confirm their lensed nature and explore these distant galaxies in more detail.

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arXiv2022

The Active Galactic Nuclei in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) III. A red quasar with extremely high equivalent widths showing powerful outflows

We report an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) with extremely high equivalent width (EW), EW(LyA+NV,rest)>921 AA in the rest-frame, at z~2.24 in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) as a representative case of the high EW AGN population. The continuum level is a non-detection in the HETDEX spectrum, thus the measured EW is a lower limit. The source is detected with significant emission lines (>7sigma) at LyA+NV, CIV, and moderate emission line (~4sigma) at HeII within the wavelength coverage of HETDEX (3500 AA - 5500 AA). The r-band magnitude is 24.57 from the Hyper Suprime-Cam-HETDEX joint survey with a detection limit of r=25.12 at 5sigma. The LyA emission line spans a clearly resolved region of ~10 arcsec (85 kpc) in diameter. The LyA line profile is strongly double peaked. The spectral decomposed blue gas and red gas Ly$α$ emission are separated by ~1.2 arcsec (10.1 kpc) with a line-of-sight velocity offset of ~1100 km/s. This source is probably an obscured AGN with powerful winds.

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arXiv2022

Stellar Populations of Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies in the HETDEX Survey I: An Analysis of LAEs in the GOODS-N Field

We present the results of a stellar-population analysis of Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAES) in GOODS-N at 1.9 < z < 3.5 spectroscopically identified by the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). We provide a method for connecting emission-line detections from the blind spectroscopic survey to imaging counterparts, a crucial tool needed as HETDEX builds a massive database of ~1 million Lyman-alpha detections. Using photometric data spanning as many as 11 filters covering 0.4-4.5 microns from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, we study the objects' global properties and explore which properties impact the strength of Lyman-alpha emission. We measure a median stellar mass of 0.8 (^+2.9_-0.5) x 10^9 Msol and conclude that the physical properties of HETDEX spectroscopically-selected LAEs are comparable to LAEs selected by previous deep narrow band studies. We find that stellar mass and star formation rate correlate strongly with the Lyman-alpha equivalent width. We then use a known sample of z>7 LAEs to perform a proto-study of predicting Lyman-alpha emission from galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization, finding agreement at the 1-sigma level between prediction and observation for the majority of strong emitters.

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arXiv2022

The Active Galactic Nuclei in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) II. Luminosity Function

We present the LyA emission line luminosity function (LF) of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the first release of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) AGN catalog (Liu et al. 2022, Paper I). The AGN are selected either by emission-line pairs characteristic of AGN or by single broad emission line, free of any photometric pre-selections (magnitude/color/morphology). The sample consists of 2,346 AGN spanning 1.88 5σ$ confidence at r~26 in the deepest $r$-band images we have searched. The LyA line luminosity ranges from ~10^42.3 to ~10^45.9 erg s^-1. Our LyA LF shows a turnover luminosity with opposite slopes on the bright end and the faint end: The space density is highest at L_LyA^*=10^43.4 erg s^-1. We explore the evolution of the AGN LF over a broader redshift range (0.8<z<3); constructing the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) LF with the 1450 AA monochromatic luminosity of the power-law component of the continuum ($\rm M_{1450}$) from M_1450~-18 to ~-27.5. We divide the sample into three redshift bins (z~1.5, 2.1, and 2.6). In all three redshift bins, our UV LFs indicate that the space density of AGN is highest at the turnover luminosity M_1450^* with opposite slopes on the bright end and the faint end. The M_1450 LFs in the three redshift bins can be well-fit with a luminosity-evolution-density-evolution (LEDE) model: the turnover luminosity (M_1450^*) increases and the turnover density (Phi^*) decreases with increasing redshift.

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arXiv2022

Lyα Halos around [O III]-Selected Galaxies in HETDEX

We present extended Lyman-α (Lyα) emission out to 800 kpc of 1034 [O III]-selected galaxies at redshifts 1.9 40 kpc from the galaxy centers. The surface brightness in the inner parts (r<10 kpc) around the [O III]-selected galaxies, however, is ten times fainter than that of the LAEs. Our results are consistent with the notion that photons dominating the outer regions of the Lyα halos are not produced in the central galaxies but originate outside of them.

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arXiv2022

Gas inflows in the polar ring of NGC 4111: the birth of an AGN

We have used Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images, SAURON Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) and adaptative optics assisted Gemini NIFS near-infrared K-band IFS to map the stellar and gas distribution, excitation and kinematics of the inner few kpc of the nearby edge-on S0 galaxy NGC 4111. The HST images map its $\approx$ 450 pc diameter dusty polar ring, with an estimated gas mass $\ge10^7$ M$_\odot$. The NIFS datacube maps the inner 110 pc radius at $\approx$ 7 pc spatial resolution revealing a $\approx$ 220 pc diameter polar ring in hot ($2267\pm166$ K) molecular H$_2$ 1-0 S(1) gas embedded in the polar ring. The stellar velocity field shows disk-dominated kinematics along the galaxy plane both in the SAURON large-scale and in the NIFS nuclear-scale data. The large-scale [O III] $\lambda5007$ Åvelocity field shows a superposition of two disk kinematics: one similar to that of the stars and another along the polar ring, showing non-circular motions that seem to connect with the velocity field of the nuclear H$_2$ ring, whose kinematics indicate accelerated inflow to the nucleus. The estimated mass inflow rate is enough not only to feed an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) but also to trigger circumnuclear star formation in the near future. We propose a scenario in which gas from the polar ring, which probably originated from the capture of a dwarf galaxy, is moving inwards and triggering an AGN, as supported by the local X-ray emission, which seems to be the source of the H$_2$ 1-0 S(1) excitation. The fact that we see neither near-UV nor Br$γ$ emission suggests that the nascent AGN is still deeply buried under the optically thick dust of the polar ring.

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