On contamination and completeness in z ≥ 5 Lyman-break galaxy surveys

Abstract

A large population of z > 5 Lyman-break galaxies has been identified in recent years. However, the high-redshift galaxies selected by different surveys are subject to a variety of selection effects - some overt, others more subtle. We present an analysis of sample completeness and contamination issues in high-redshift surveys, focusing on surveys at z ≈ 5 and using a spectroscopically confirmed low-redshift sample from the DEEP2 survey in order to characterize contaminant galaxies. We find that most surveys underestimate their contamination from highly clustered galaxies at z ≈ 1 and stars. We consider the consequences of this for both the rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity function and the clustering signal from z ≈ 5 galaxies. We also find that sources with moderate strength Lyman α emission lines can be omitted from dropout surveys due to their blue colours, again effecting the derived luminosity functions. We discuss the points of comparison between different samples, and the applicability of survey-specific results to the population at z > 5 in general. © 2008 RAS.