Extended Lyα emission around star-forming galaxies

Abstract

Lyα photons that escape the interstellar medium of star-forming galaxies may be resonantly scattered by neutral hydrogen atoms in the circumgalactic and intergalactic media, thereby increasing the angular extent of the galaxy's Lyα emission. We present predictions of this extended, low surface brightness Lyα emission based on radiative transfer modeling in a cosmological reionization simulation. The extended emission can be detected from stacked narrowband images of Lyα emitters (LAEs) or of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). Its average surface brightness profile has a central cusp, then flattens to an approximate plateau beginning at an inner characteristic scale below 0.2Mpc (comoving), then steepens again beyond an outer characteristic scale of 1Mpc. The inner scale marks the transition from scattered light of the central source to emission from clustered sources, while the outer scale marks the spatial extent of scattered emission from these clustered sources. Both scales tend to increase with halo mass, UV luminosity, and observed Lyα luminosity. The extended emission predicted by our simulation is already within reach of deep narrowband photometry using large ground-based telescopes. Such observations would test radiative transfer models of emission from LAEs and LBGs, and they would open a new window on the circumgalactic environment of high-redshift star-forming galaxies. © 2011 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.