CONSTRAINING VERY HIGH MASS POPULATION III STARS THROUGH He II EMISSION IN GALAXY BDF-521 AT z = 7.01

Numerous theoretical models have long proposed that a strong He II [lambda]1640 emission line is the most prominent and unique feature of massive Population III (Pop III) stars in high-redshift galaxies. The He II [lambda]1640 line strength can constrain the mass and initial mass function (IMF) of P...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astrophysical journal. Letters 2015-02, Vol.799 (2), p.1-5
Main Authors: Cai, Zheng, Fan, Xiaohui, Jiang, Linhua, Dave, Romeel, Oh, S Peng, Yang, Yujin, Zabludoff, Ann
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
Broadband
CAMERAS
Emission
Emission spectroscopy
Flux
FLUX DENSITY
GALAXIES
HELIUM IONS
Imaging
ION EMISSION
MASS
Narrowband
NOISE
Population III stars
RED SHIFT
RESOLUTION
SPACE
STARS
TELESCOPES
VISIBLE RADIATION
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Summary:Numerous theoretical models have long proposed that a strong He II [lambda]1640 emission line is the most prominent and unique feature of massive Population III (Pop III) stars in high-redshift galaxies. The He II [lambda]1640 line strength can constrain the mass and initial mass function (IMF) of Pop III stars. We use F132N narrowband filter on the Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 to look for strong He II [lambda]1640 emission in the galaxy BDF-521 at z = 7.01, one of the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxies to date. Using deep F132N narrowband imaging, together with our broadband imaging with F125W and F160W filters, we do not detect He II emission from this galaxy, but place a 2[sigma] upper limit on the flux of 5.3 x 10 super(-19) erg s super(-1) cm super(-2). This measurement corresponds to a 2[sigma] upper limit on the Pop III star formation rate (SFR sub(PopIII)) of ~0.2 M sub([middot in circle]) yr super(-1), assuming a Salpeter IMF with 50 [
ISSN:2041-8213
2041-8205
2041-8213
DOI:10.1088/2041-8205/799/2/L19