The MUSE-Wide survey: a measurement of the Ly α emitting fraction among z > 3 galaxies
Garel, Thibault; Brinchmann, Jarle; Richard, Johan; Verhamme, Anne; Marino, Raffaella Anna; Wisotzki, Lutz; Cantalupo, Sebastiano; Bouwens, Rychard; Caruana, Joseph; Schaye, Joop; Urrutia, Tanya; Carollo, Marcella; Herenz, Edmund Christian; Drake, Alyssa; Kerutt, Josephine; Schmidt, Kasper Borello; Diener, Catrina; Saust, Rikke
Malta, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France
Abstract
We present a measurement of the fraction of Lyman α (Ly α) emitters (XLy α) amongst HST continuum-selected galaxies at 3 < z < 6 with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the VLT. Making use of the first 24 MUSE-Wide pointings in GOODS-South, each having an integration time of 1 h, we detect 100 Ly α emitters and find XLy α ≳ 0.5 for most of the redshift range covered, with 29 per cent of the Ly α sample exhibiting rest equivalent widths (rest-EWs) ≤ 15 Å. Adopting a range of rest-EW cuts (0-75 Å), we find no evidence of a dependence of XLy α on either redshift or ultraviolet luminosity.