The discovery of the most UV-Ly alpha luminous star-forming galaxy: a young, dust- and metal-poor starburst with QSO-like luminosities

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  • R. Marques-Chaves
  • J. Alvarez-Marquez
  • L. Colina
  • I. Perez-Fournon
  • D. Schaerer
  • C. Dalla Vecchia
  • T. Hashimoto
  • C. Jimenez-Angel
  • Y. Shu

We report the discovery of BOSS-EUVLG1 at z = 2.469, by far the most luminous, almost un-obscured star-forming galaxy known at any redshift. First classified as a QSO within the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, follow-up observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias reveal that its large luminosity, M-UV similar or equal to -24.40 and log(L-Ly alpha/erg s(-1)) similar or equal to 44.0, is due to an intense burst of star formation, and not to an active galactic nucleus or gravitational lensing. BOSS-EUVLG1 is a compact (r(eff) similar or equal to 1.2 kpc), young (4-5 Myr) starburst with a stellar mass log(M-*/M-circle dot) = 10.0 +/- 0.1 and a prodigious star formation rate of similar or equal to 1000 M-circle dot yr(-1). However, it is metal- and dust-poor [12+ log(O/H) = 8.13 +/- 0.19, E(B - V) similar or equal to 0.07, log(L-IR/L-UV) <-1.2], indicating that we are witnessing the very early phase of an intense starburst that has had no time to enrich the ISM. BOSS-EUVLG1 might represent a short-lived (

Original languageEnglish
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume499
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)L105-L110
Number of pages6
ISSN0035-8711
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2020

    Research areas

  • galaxies: formation, galaxies: high-redshift, SIMILAR-TO 2, EMITTERS, EVOLUTION, DENSITY, REGIONS, MODELS, SLOPE

ID: 258027584