Publication: The OTELO survey revealing a population of low-luminosity active star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 0.9
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2021-09-03
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Abstract
Aims. We study a sample of Hβ emission line sources at z ∼ 0.9 to identify the star-forming galaxies sample and characterise them in terms of line luminosity, stellar mass, star formation rate, and morphology. The final aim is to obtain the Hβ luminosity function of the star-forming galaxies at this redshift.
Methods. We used the red tunable filter of the instrument Optical System for Imaging low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy (OSIRIS) at Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) to obtain the pseudo spectra of emission line sources in the OTELO field. From these pseudo spectra, we identified the objects with Hβ emission. As the resolution of the pseudo spectra allowed us to separate Hβ from [O iii], we were able to derive the Hβ flux without contamination from its adjacent line. Using data from the extended OTELO catalogue, we discriminated AGNs and studied the star formation rate, the stellar mass, and the morphology of the star-forming galaxies.
Results. We find that our sample is located on the main sequence of star-forming galaxies. The sources are orphologically classified, mostly as disc-like galaxies (76%), and 90% of the sample are low-mass galaxies (M∗ < 10^(10) Mꙩ). The low-mass star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 0.9 that were detected by OTELO present similar properties as low-mass star-forming galaxies in the local universe, suggesting that these kinds of objects do not have a favorite epoch of formation and star formation enhancement from z ∼1 to now. Our sample of 40 Hβ star-forming galaxies include the faintest Hβ emitters detected so far. This allows us to constrain the faint end of the luminosity function for the Hβ line alone with minimum luminosity of log L = 39 erg s^(−1), which is a hundred times fainter than previous surveys. The dust-corrected OSIRIS Tunable Emission Line Object survey (OTELO) Hβ luminosity function established the faint-end slope as α = −1.36 ± 0.15. We increased the scope of the analysis to the bright end by adding ancillary data from the literature, which was not dust-corrected in this case. The obtained slope for this extended luminosity function is α = −1.43 ± 0.12.
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© ESO 2021. Artículo firmado por 19 autores. This paper is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend and colleague Hector Castañeda, unfortunately died on 19 Nov 2020. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the grants AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 1 - P, AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 2 - P, AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 3 - P, AYA2013 - 46724 - P, AYA2017 - 88007 – C3 – 1 – P, AYA2017 – 88007 – C3 – 2, MDM-2017-0737 (Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, CAB). APG acknowledge support from ESA through the Faculty of the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) - Funding reference ESAC 549/2019. Based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma. This study makes use of data from AEGIS, a multiwavelength sky survey conducted with the Chandra, GALEX, Hubble, Keck, CFHT, MMT, Subaru, Palomar, Spitzer, VLA, and other telescopes and supported in part by the NSF, NASA, and the STFC. Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/IRFU, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l’Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at Terapix available at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre as part of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, a collaborative project of NRC and CNRS. Based on observations obtained with WIRCam, a joint project of CFHT,Taiwan, Korea, Canada, France, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institute National des Sciences de l’Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at TERAPIX, the WIRDS (WIRcam Deep Survey) consortium, and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. This research was supported by a grant from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR-07-BLAN-0228.