# University of Hertfordshire

## LOFAR Properties of SILVERRUSH Lya emitter candidates in the ELAIS-N1 Field

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

### Documents

• 2011.08203v1

Accepted author manuscript, 2.59 MB, PDF document

• A. J. Gloudemans
• K. J. Duncan
• R. Kondapally
• J. Sabater
• R. K. Cochrane
• H. J. A. Röttgering
• P. N. Best
• M. Bonato
• M. Bondi
• K. Malek
• I. McCheyne
• D. J. B. Smith
• I. Prandoni
• L. Wang
Original language English A7 17 Astronomy & Astrophysics 648 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038819 Published - 7 Apr 2021

### Abstract

Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) offer valuable probes of early galaxy evolution and the process of reionization; however, the exact evolution of their abundance and the nature of their emission remain open questions. We combine samples of 229 and 349 LAE candidates at $z=5.7$ and $z=6.6,$ respectively, from the SILVERRUSH narrowband survey with deep Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio continuum observations in the ELAIS-N1 field to search for radio galaxies in the EoR and study the low-frequency radio properties of $z\gtrsim5.7$ LAE emitters. Our LOFAR observations reach an unprecedented noise level of $\sim20\,\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ at 150MHz, and we detect five candidate LAEs at $>5\sigma$ significance. Based on detailed spectral energy distribution modelling of independent multi-wavelength observations, we conclude that these sources are likely [OII] emitters at $z=1.47$, yielding no reliable $z\gtrsim5.7$ radio galaxy candidates. We examine the 111 $z=5.7$ and $z=6.6$ LAE candidates from our panchromatic photometry catalogue that are undetected by LOFAR, finding contamination rates of 81-92% for the $z=5.7$ and $z=6.6$ subset of the LAE candidate samples. This subset is biased towards brighter magnitudes and redder near-infrared colours. The contamination rates of the full sample will therefore likely be lower than the reported values. Contamination is lowered significantly through constraints on the near-infrared colours, highlighting the need for infrared observations to robustly identify bright LAEs in narrowband surveys. Finally, the stacking of radio continuum observations for the robust LAE samples yields 2$\sigma$ upper limits on radio luminosity of 8.2$\times$10$^{23}$ and 8.7$\times$10$^{23}$ W Hz$^{-1}$ at $z=5.7$ and $6.6$, respectively, corresponding to limits on their median star-formation rates of \$