• DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13481.x
• Corpus ID: 10421079

HiZELS: a high-redshift survey of Hα emitters – I. The cosmic star formation rate and clustering at z= 2.23

@article{Geach2008HiZELSAH,
  title={HiZELS: a high-redshift survey of H$\alpha$ emitters – I. The cosmic star formation rate and clustering at z= 2.23},
  author={James E. Geach and I. R. Smail and Philip N. Best and Jaron Daniel Kurk and Mark M. Casali and R. J. Ivison and K. E. K. Coppin},
  journal={Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year={2008},
  volume={388},
  pages={1473-1486}
}

• J. Geach, I. Smail, +4 authors K. Coppin
• Published 19 May 2008
• Physics
• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We present results from a near-infrared narrow-band survey of emission-line galaxies at z = 2.23, using the Wide Field Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. The H2S1 narrow-band filter ( �c = 2.121µm) we employ selects the Hemission line redshifted to z = 2.23, and is thus suitable for selecting 'typical' star forming g alaxies and active galactic nuclei at this epoch. The pilot study was undertaken in the well studied Cosmological Evolution Survey field (COSMOS) and is already the largest near-infrar ed narrow-band survey at this depth, with a line flux limit of FH� � 10 −16 erg s −1 cm −2 over 0.60 square degrees, probing �220× 10 3 Mpc 3 (co-moving) down to a limiting star formation rate of �30M⊙ yr −1 (3�). In this paper we present the results from our pilot survey and evaluate the Hluminosity function and estimate the clustering properties of Hemitters at z = 2.23 from 55 detected galaxies. The integrated luminosity function is used to est imate the volume averaged star formation rate at z = 2.23: �SFR = 0.17 +0.16 −0.09M⊙ yr −1 Mpc −3 for LH� > 10 42 erg s −1 . For the first time, we use the Hstar-formation tracer to reliably constrainSFR out to z = 2.23 demonstrating the rapid increase inSFR out to this redshift as well as confirming the flattening inSFR betweenz � 1-2. In addition to the luminosity distribution, we analyse t he clustering properties of these galaxies. Using the 2-point angular correlation function, !(�), we estimate a real space correlation length of r0 = 4.2 +0.4 −0.2 h −1 Mpc. In comparison to models of clustering which take into account bias evolution, we estimate that these galaxies are hosted by dark matter halos of mass Mhalo � 10 12 M⊙ consistent with the progenitors of the Milky