%0 Generic %1 jiang2013lbtluci %A Jiang, Linhua %A Bian, Fuyan %A Fan, Xiaohui %A Krug, Hannah B. %A McGreer, Ian D. %A Stark, Daniel P. %A Clement, Benjamin %A Egami, Eiichi %D 2013 %K emission lya spectroscopy %T Deep LBT/LUCI Spectroscopy of a Lyman-alpha Emitter Candidate at z ~ 7.7 %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.5257 %X We present deep spectroscopic observations of a Lyman-alpha emitter (LAE) candidate at z ~ 7.7 using the infrared spectrograph LUCI on the 2 x 8.4m Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The candidate is the brightest among the four z ~ 7.7 LAE candidates found in a narrow-band imaging survey by Krug et al. 2012. Our spectroscopic data include a total of 7.5 hours of integration with LBT/LUCI and are deep enough to significantly (3.2-4.9 sigma) detect the Lyman-alpha emission line of this candidate, based on its Lyman-alpha flux 1.2 x 10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2 estimated from the narrow-band photometry. However, we do not find any convincing signal at the expected position of its Lyman-alpha emission line, suggesting that this source is not an LAE at z ~ 7.7. The non-detection in this work, together with the previous studies of z ~ 7.7 LAEs, puts a strong constraint on the bright-end Lyman-alpha luminosity function (LF) at z ~ 7.7. We find a rapid evolution of the Lyman-alpha LF from z ~ 6.5 to 7.7: the upper limit of the z ~ 7.7 LF is more than 5 times lower than the z ~ 6.5 LF at the bright end (f > 1.0 x 10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2, or L > 6.9 x 10^42 erg s^-1). This is likely caused by an increasing neutral fraction in the IGM that substantially attenuates Lyman-alpha emission at z ~ 7.7.

@misc{jiang2013lbtluci, abstract = {We present deep spectroscopic observations of a Lyman-alpha emitter (LAE) candidate at z ~ 7.7 using the infrared spectrograph LUCI on the 2 x 8.4m Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The candidate is the brightest among the four z ~ 7.7 LAE candidates found in a narrow-band imaging survey by Krug et al. 2012. Our spectroscopic data include a total of 7.5 hours of integration with LBT/LUCI and are deep enough to significantly (3.2-4.9 sigma) detect the Lyman-alpha emission line of this candidate, based on its Lyman-alpha flux 1.2 x 10^{-17} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} estimated from the narrow-band photometry. However, we do not find any convincing signal at the expected position of its Lyman-alpha emission line, suggesting that this source is not an LAE at z ~ 7.7. The non-detection in this work, together with the previous studies of z ~ 7.7 LAEs, puts a strong constraint on the bright-end Lyman-alpha luminosity function (LF) at z ~ 7.7. We find a rapid evolution of the Lyman-alpha LF from z ~ 6.5 to 7.7: the upper limit of the z ~ 7.7 LF is more than 5 times lower than the z ~ 6.5 LF at the bright end (f > 1.0 x 10^{-17} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2}, or L > 6.9 x 10^{42} erg s^{-1}). This is likely caused by an increasing neutral fraction in the IGM that substantially attenuates Lyman-alpha emission at z ~ 7.7.}, added-at = {2013-05-24T05:34:33.000+0200}, author = {Jiang, Linhua and Bian, Fuyan and Fan, Xiaohui and Krug, Hannah B. and McGreer, Ian D. and Stark, Daniel P. and Clement, Benjamin and Egami, Eiichi}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2b49afeb280e19878fd36d82124969a73/miki}, description = {[1305.5257] Deep LBT/LUCI Spectroscopy of a Lyman-alpha Emitter Candidate at z ~ 7.7}, interhash = {0a19405bb9f45b8acd65452f679b752d}, intrahash = {b49afeb280e19878fd36d82124969a73}, keywords = {emission lya spectroscopy}, note = {cite arxiv:1305.5257Comment: ApJL accepted: 12 pages, 4 figures}, timestamp = {2013-05-24T05:34:33.000+0200}, title = {Deep LBT/LUCI Spectroscopy of a Lyman-alpha Emitter Candidate at z ~ 7.7}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.5257}, year = 2013 }