Extended Lyman alpha haloes around individual high-redshift galaxies revealed by MUSE

Understand

We report the detection of extended Ly alpha emission around individual star-forming galaxies at redshifts z = 3-6 in an ultradeep exposure of the Hubble Deep Field South obtained with MUSE on the ESO-VLT.

• The data reach a limiting surface brightness (1sigma) of ~1 x 10^-19 erg s^-1 cm^-2 arcsec^-2 in azimuthally averaged radial profiles, an order of magnitude improvement over previous narrowband imaging.
• Our sample consists of 26 spectroscopically confirmed Ly alpha-emitting, but mostly continuum-faint (m_AB >~ 27) galaxies.
• In most objects the Ly alpha emission is considerably more extended than the UV continuum light.