The Far-Ultraviolet Continuum Slope as a Lyman Continuum Escape Estimator at High-redshift

Understand

Most of the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) was rapidly ionized at high-redshifts.

• While observations have established that reionization occurred, observational constraints on the emissivity of ionizing photons at high-redshift remains elusive.
• Here, we present a new analysis of the Low-redshift Lyman Continuum Survey (LzLCS) and archival observations, a combined sample of 89 star-forming galaxies at z~0.3 with Hubble Space Telescope observations of their ionizing continua (or Lyman Continuum, LyC).
• We find a strong (6$\sigma$ significant) inverse correlation between the continuum slope at 1550\r{A} (defined as F$_\lambda\propto\lambda^{\beta}$) and both the LyC escape fraction (f$_{esc}$) and f$_{esc}$ times the ionizing photon production efficiency ($\xi_{ ion}$).