Candidate z~8-9 Galaxies from WFC3 Imaging

Understand

We present a search for galaxies at 7.6<z<9.8 using the latest HST WFC3 near-infrared data, based on the Lyman-break technique.

• We search for galaxies which have large (Y-J) colours (the &#34;Y-drops&#34;) on account of the Lyman-alpha forest absorption, and with (J-H) colours inconsistent with being low-redshift contaminants.
• We identify 24 candidates at redshift z~8-9 (15 are robust and a further 9 more marginal but consistent with being high redshift) over an area of ~50 square arcminutes.
• Previous searches for Y-drops with WFC3 have focussed only on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), and our larger survey (involving two other nearby deep fields and a wider area survey) has trebelled the number of robust Y-drop candidates.