An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy

Ďurovčíková D, Eilers AC, Simcoe RA, Welsh L, Meyer RA, Matthee JJ, Ryan-Weber EV, Yue M, Katz H, Satyavolu S, Becker G, Davies FB, Farina EP. 2025. An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy. Astrophysical Journal Letters. 987(2), L33.

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Author
Ďurovčíková, Dominika; Eilers, Anna Christina; Simcoe, Robert A.; Welsh, Louise; Meyer, Romain A.; Matthee, Jorryt JISTA ; Ryan-Weber, Emma V.; Yue, Minghao; Katz, Harley; Satyavolu, Sindhu; Becker, George; Davies, Frederick B.
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Abstract
We report the discovery of a Lyα emitter (LAE) candidate in the immediate foreground of the quasar PSO J158-14 at zQSO = 6.0685 at a projected distance ∼29 pkpc that is associated with an extremely metal-poor absorption system. This system was found in archival observations of the quasar field with the Very Large Telescope (VLT)/Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and was previously missed in searches of absorption systems using quasar absorption line spectroscopy, as it imparts no detectable metal absorption lines on the background quasar spectrum. The detected Lyα emission line at a redshift of zLAE = 6.0323 is well aligned with the outer edge of the quasar’s proximity zone and can plausibly cause its observed damping wing if it is associated with a proximate subdamped Lyα absorption system with a column density of log Nhi/cm^-2 19.7. A >10 hr medium-resolution spectrum of the quasar observed with the Magellan/Folded-port InfraRed Echellette (FIRE) and VLT/X-Shooter spectrographs reveals a metallicity constraint of [Z/H] < −3. Such low metallicity makes this system an extremely metal-poor galaxy candidate and provides an exciting site to study possible signatures of Population III stars.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2025-07-10
Journal Title
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Acknowledgement
We thank the referee for the feedback and suggestions that greatly improved the quality of this manuscript. We would like to thank Carlos Contreras, Matías Díaz, Carla Fuentes, Mauricio Martínez, Alberto Pastén, Roger Leiton, Hugo Rivera, and Gabriel Prieto for their help and support during the Magellan/FIRE observations. We would also like to thank Rongmon Bordoloi for helpful discussions. R.A.M. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) through project grant 200020_207349. This Letter includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programs 106.215A and 096.A-0418. The HST data presented in this Letter were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute. The observations analyzed in this work can be accessed via doi:10.17909/gxmz-zd87.
Volume
987
Issue
2
Article Number
L33
ISSN
eISSN
IST-REx-ID

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Ďurovčíková D, Eilers AC, Simcoe RA, et al. An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy. Astrophysical Journal Letters. 2025;987(2). doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ade71c
Ďurovčíková, D., Eilers, A. C., Simcoe, R. A., Welsh, L., Meyer, R. A., Matthee, J. J., … Farina, E. P. (2025). An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy. Astrophysical Journal Letters. IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ade71c
Ďurovčíková, Dominika, Anna Christina Eilers, Robert A. Simcoe, Louise Welsh, Romain A. Meyer, Jorryt J Matthee, Emma V. Ryan-Weber, et al. “An Extremely Metal-Poor Lyα Emitter Candidate at z = 6 Revealed through Absorption Spectroscopy.” Astrophysical Journal Letters. IOP Publishing, 2025. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ade71c.
D. Ďurovčíková et al., “An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy,” Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 987, no. 2. IOP Publishing, 2025.
Ďurovčíková D, Eilers AC, Simcoe RA, Welsh L, Meyer RA, Matthee JJ, Ryan-Weber EV, Yue M, Katz H, Satyavolu S, Becker G, Davies FB, Farina EP. 2025. An extremely metal-poor Lyα emitter candidate at z = 6 revealed through absorption spectroscopy. Astrophysical Journal Letters. 987(2), L33.
Ďurovčíková, Dominika, et al. “An Extremely Metal-Poor Lyα Emitter Candidate at z = 6 Revealed through Absorption Spectroscopy.” Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 987, no. 2, L33, IOP Publishing, 2025, doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ade71c.
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