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 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.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 189 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 889 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2020 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science
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Brightest high-z galaxies in RELICS clusters
Salmon, B. (Creator), Coe, D. (Creator), Bradley, L. (Creator), Bouwens, R. (Creator), Bradač, M. (Contributor), Huang, K.-H. (Creator), Oesch, P. A. (Creator), Stark, D. (Creator), Sharon, K. (Creator), Trenti, M. (Creator), Avila, R. J. (Creator), Ogaz, S. (Creator), Andrade-Santos, F. (Creator), Carrasco, D. (Creator), Cerny, C. (Creator), Dawson, W. (Creator), Frye, B. L. (Creator), Hoag, A. (Creator), Johnson, T. L. (Creator), Jones, C. (Creator), Lam, D. (Creator), Lovisari, L. (Creator), Mainali, R. (Creator), Past, M. (Creator), Paterno-Mahler, R. (Creator), Peterson, A. (Creator), Riess, A. G. (Creator), Rodney, S. A. (Creator), Ryan, R. E. (Creator), Sendra-Server, I. (Creator), Strait, V. (Creator), Strolger, L.-G. (Creator), Umetsu, K. (Creator), Vulcani, B. (Creator), Zitrin, A. (Creator), Coe, D. (Creator), Bradley, L. (Creator), Ryan, R. E. (Creator) & Umetsu, K. (Creator), Centre de Donnees Strasbourg (CDS), 2021
DOI: 10.26093/cds/vizier.18890189, https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/889/189
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