Abstract
Understanding the internal mechanisms of galaxies that promote or hinder Lyman-alpha escape is key to using Lyman-alpha as a tracer for reionization. One key assumption for this is that we understand the Lyman-alpha emission that escapes a galaxy (post-ISM but pre-CGM). However, this has been, to date, a quantity that is very ill-constrained and is very much model-dependent. We hope to gain insight into the Lyman-alpha emission of galaxies by tying it back to their galaxy properties and uncover which galaxy properties promote or hinder Lyman-alpha escape. We aim to study a sample of 40 Lyman-alpha-emitting galaxies (LAEs) and roughly 500 Non-Lyman-alpha-emitting galaxies (NLAEs) using the MOSDEF and HETDEX survey. MOSDEF is a spectroscopic survey that uses the Y, J, H, and K bands on the MOSFIRE instrument on Keck to study nebular emission lines and acquire robust spectroscopic redshifts of MOSDEF galaxies between redshifts 1 - 5. These galaxies are in the perfect redshift range to be seen with HETDEX, as HETDEX is sensitive to the Lyman-alpha emission at the redshift range between 1.9 < z < 3.5. Using the MOSDEF spectrum, in conjunction with the wealth of photometric information in the MOSDEF field (ie: UDS, AEGIS, GOODS-N, GOODS-S, COSMOS), we will be able to robustly constrain the galaxy properties of these galaxies and study how galaxy properties tie back to Lyman-alpha emission strength. The analysis will be most informative as we will now be able to study the difference between Lyman-alpha-emitting and non-emitting galaxies and put into context what makes a galaxy emit Lyman-alpha vs one that does not.