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arXiv · 1912.02261

A Catalog of Emission-Line Galaxies from the Faint Infrared Grism Survey: Studying Environmental Influence on Star Formation

John Pharo·Sangeeta Malhotra·James E. Rhoads·Norbert Pirzkal·Steven L. Finkelstein·Russell Ryan·Andrea Cimatti·Lise Christensen·Nimish Hathi·Anton Koekemoer·Santosh Harish·Mark Smith·Amber Straughn·Rogier Windhorst·Ignacio Ferreras·Caryl Gronwall·Pascale Hibon·Rebecca Larson·Robert O'Connell·Anna Pasquali·Vithal Tilvi
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Abstract

We present a catalog of 208 $0.3 < z < 2.1$ Emission Line Galaxies (ELG) selected from 1D slitless spectroscopy obtained using Hubble's WFC3 G102 grism, as part of the Faint Infrared Grism Survey (FIGS). We identify ELG candidates by searching for significant peaks in all continuum-subtracted G102 spectra, and, where possible, confirm candidates by identifying consistent emission lines in other available spectra or with published spectroscopic redshifts. We provide derived emission line fluxes and errors, redshifts, and equivalent widths (EW) for H$α$ $\lambda6563$, [OIII]$λ\lambda4959,5007$, and [OII]$λ\lambda3727$ emission lines, for emission line galaxies down to AB(F105W) $ > 28$ and $> 10^{-17}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ line flux. We use the resulting line catalog to investigate a possible relationship between line emission and a galaxy's environment. We use 7th-nearest-neighbor distances to investigate the typical surroundings of ELGs compared to non-ELGs, and we find that [OIII] emitters are preferentially found at intermediate galaxy densities near galaxy groups. We characterize these ELGs in terms of the galaxy specific star formation rate (SSFR) versus stellar mass, and find no significant influence of environment on that relation. We calculate star formation rates (SFR), and find no dependence of SFR on local galaxy surface density for $0.3 < z < 0.8$ H$α$ emitters and for $0.8<z<1.3$ [OIII] emitters. We find similar rates of close-pair interaction between ELGs and non-ELGs. For galaxy surface densities $Σ\leq 30$ Mpc$^{-2}$, we find no consistent effect of environment on star formation.

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John Pharo, Sangeeta Malhotra, James E. Rhoads, Norbert Pirzkal, Steven L. Finkelstein, Russell Ryan, Andrea Cimatti, Lise Christensen, Nimish Hathi, Anton Koekemoer, Santosh Harish, Mark Smith, Amber Straughn, Rogier Windhorst, Ignacio Ferreras, Caryl Gronwall, Pascale Hibon, Rebecca Larson, Robert O'Connell, Anna Pasquali, Vithal Tilvi. 2019-12-04. A Catalog of Emission-Line Galaxies from the Faint Infrared Grism Survey: Studying Environmental Influence on Star Formation. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357%2Fab5f5c

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