RELICS: The Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey and the Brightest High-z Galaxies

Journal
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Salmon, Brett
•
Coe, Dan
•
Bradley, Larry
•
Bouwens, Rychard
•
Bradač, Marusa
•
Huang, Kuang-Han
•
Oesch, Pascal A.
•
Stark, Daniel
•
Sharon, Keren
•
Trenti, Michele
•
Avila, Roberto J.
•
Ogaz, Sara
•
Andrade-Santos, Felipe
•
Carrasco, Daniela
•
Cerny, Catherine
•
Dawson, William
•
Frye, Brenda L.
•
Hoag, Austin
•
Johnson, Traci Lin
•
Jones, Christine
•
Lam, Daniel
•
•
Mainali, Ramesh
•
Past, Matt
•
Paterno-Mahler, Rachel
•
Peterson, Avery
•
Riess, Adam G.
•
Rodney, Steven A.
•
Ryan, Russel E.
•
Sendra-Server, Irene
•
Strait, Victoria
•
Strolger, Louis-Gregory
•
Umetsu, Keiichi
•
•
Zitrin, Adi
DOI
Abstract
Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, permitting a view into both the extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations. We present here the $z\sim 6\mbox{--}8$ candidate high-redshift galaxies from the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS), a Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope survey of 41 massive galaxy clusters spanning an area of ≈200 arcmin2. These clusters were selected to be excellent lenses, and we find similar high-redshift sample sizes and magnitude distributions as the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). We discover 257, 57, and eight candidate galaxies at z ∼ 6, 7, and 8 respectively, (322 in total). The observed (lensed) magnitudes of the z ∼ 6 candidates are as bright as AB mag ∼23, making them among the brightest known at these redshifts, comparable with discoveries from much wider, blank-field surveys. RELICS demonstrates the efficiency of using strong gravitational lenses to produce high-redshift samples in the epoch of reionization. These brightly observed galaxies are excellent targets for follow-up study with current and future observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope.
Volume
889
Issue
2
Start page
189
Uri
Url
Issn Identifier
0004-637X
Ads BibCode
2020ApJ...889..189S
Rights
open.access
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