@article{11531,
  abstract     = {While low-luminosity galaxies dominate number counts at all redshifts, their contribution to cosmic reionization is poorly understood due to a lack of knowledge of their physical properties. We isolate a sample of 35 z ≈ 4–5 continuum-faint Lyman-α emitters from deep VLT/MUSE spectroscopy and directly measure their H α emission using stacked Spitzer/IRAC Ch. 1 photometry. Based on Hubble Space Telescope imaging, we determine that the average UV continuum magnitude is fainter than −16 (≈ 0.01 L⋆), implying a median Lyman-α equivalent width of 259 Å. By combining the H α measurement with the UV magnitude, we determine the ionizing photon production efficiency, ξion, a first for such faint galaxies. The measurement of log10 (ξion [Hz erg−1]) = 26.28 (⁠+0.28−0.40⁠) is in excess of literature measurements of both continuum- and emission line-selected samples, implying a more efficient production of ionizing photons in these lower luminosity, Lyman-α-selected systems. We conclude that this elevated efficiency can be explained by stellar populations with metallicities between 4 × 10−4 and 0.008, with light-weighted ages less than 3 Myr.},
  author       = {Maseda, Michael V and Bacon, Roland and Lam, Daniel and Matthee, Jorryt J and Brinchmann, Jarle and Schaye, Joop and Labbe, Ivo and Schmidt, Kasper B and Boogaard, Leindert and Bouwens, Rychard and Cantalupo, Sebastiano and Franx, Marijn and Hashimoto, Takuya and Inami, Hanae and Kusakabe, Haruka and Mahler, Guillaume and Nanayakkara, Themiya and Richard, Johan and Wisotzki, Lutz},
  issn         = {1365-2966},
  journal      = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  keywords     = {Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Galaxies: evolution, Galaxies: high-redshift, Galaxies: ISM},
  number       = {4},
  pages        = {5120--5130},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{Elevated ionizing photon production efficiency in faint high-equivalent-width Lyman-α emitters}},
  doi          = {10.1093/mnras/staa622},
  volume       = {493},
  year         = {2020},
}