English

MAMMOTH: Confirmation of Two Massive Galaxy Overdensities at $z=2.24$ with H$\alpha$ Emitters

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-12-16 v1

Abstract

Massive galaxy overdensities at the peak epoch of cosmic star formation provide ideal testbeds for the formation theories of galaxies and large-scale structure. We report the confirmation of two massive galaxy overdensities at z=2.24z=2.24, BOSS1244 and BOSS1542, selected from the MAMMOTH project using Lyα\alpha absorption from the intergalactic medium over the scales of 15-30 h1h^{-1} Mpc imprinted on the quasar spectra. We use Hα\alpha emitters (HAEs) as the density tracer and identify them using deep narrowband H2S1H_2S1 and broadband KsK_{\rm s} imaging data obtained with CFHT/WIRCam. In total, 244 and 223 line emitters are detected in these two fields, and 196±2196\pm 2 and 175±2175\pm 2 are expected to be HAEs with an Hα\alpha flux of >2.5×1017> 2.5\times 10^{-17} erg s1^{-1} cm2^{-2} (corresponding to an SFR of >>5 M_\odot yr1^{-1}). The detection rate of HAE candidates suggests an overdensity factor of δgal=5.6±0.3\delta_{\rm gal}=5.6\pm0.3 and 4.9±0.34.9\pm0.3 over the volume of 54×32×3254\times32\times32 cMpc3^3. The overdensity factor increases 232-3 times when focusing on the high-density regions of scales 101510-15 cMpc. Interestingly, the HAE density maps reveal that BOSS1244 contains a dominant structure, while BOSS1542 manifests as a giant filamentary structure. We measure the Hα\alpha luminosity functions (HLF), finding that BOSS1244's HLF is nearly identical to that of the general field at the same epoch, while BOSS1542 shows an excess of HAEs with high Hα\alpha luminosity, indicating the presence of enhanced star formation or AGN activity. We conclude that the two massive MAMMOTH overdensities are undergoing a rapid galaxy mass assembly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.08068,
  title  = {MAMMOTH: Confirmation of Two Massive Galaxy Overdensities at $z=2.24$ with H$\alpha$ Emitters},
  author = {XianZhong Zheng and Zheng Cai and FangXia An and Xiaohui Fan and DongDong Shi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.08068},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS