Luminous Lyα Emitters with Very Blue UV-continuum Slopes at Redshift 5.7 ≤ z ≤ 6.6

Abstract

We study six luminous Ly α emitters (LAEs) with very blue rest-frame UV continua at 5.7 ≤  z  ≤ 6.6. These LAEs have previous Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) and Spitzer IRAC observations. Combining our newly acquired HST images, we find that their UV-continuum slopes β are in a range of −3.4 ≤  β  ≤ −2.6. Unlike previous, tentative detections of β  ≃ −3 in photometrically selected, low-luminosity galaxies, our LAEs are spectroscopically confirmed and luminous ( M UV