UV-CONTINUUM SLOPES OF >4000 z ~ 4-8 GALAXIES FROM THE HUDF/XDF, HUDF09, ERS, CANDELS-SOUTH, AND CANDELS-NORTH FIELDS

We measure the UV-continuum slope beta for over 4000 high-redshift galaxies over a wide range of redshifts z ~ 4-8 and luminosities from the HST HUDF/XDF, HUDF09-1, HUDF09-2, ERS, CANDELS-N, and CANDELS-S data sets. Inconsistencies between previous studies led us to conduct a comprehensive review of...

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Published inThe Astrophysical journal Vol. 793; no. 2; pp. 1 - 35
Main Authors Bouwens, R J, Illingworth, G D, Oesch, P A, Labbe, I, van Dokkum, P G, TRENTI, M, Franx, M, Smit, R, Gonzalez, V, Magee, D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.10.2014
Subjects
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DUSTS
Extinction
GALAXIES
HYDRODYNAMIC MODEL
LUMINOSITY
RANDOMNESS
RED SHIFT
SIMULATION
Slopes
Systematic errors
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
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Summary:We measure the UV-continuum slope beta for over 4000 high-redshift galaxies over a wide range of redshifts z ~ 4-8 and luminosities from the HST HUDF/XDF, HUDF09-1, HUDF09-2, ERS, CANDELS-N, and CANDELS-S data sets. Inconsistencies between previous studies led us to conduct a comprehensive review of systematic errors and develop a new technique for measuring beta that is robust against biases that arise from the impact of noise. We demonstrate, by object-by-object comparisons, that all previous studies, including our own and those done on the latest HUDF12 data set, suffered from small systematic errors in beta. At z ~ 7, the observed beta's suggest non-zero, but low dust extinction, and they agree well with values predicted in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.
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ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/793/2/115