The production of ionizing photons in UV-faint z~3-7 galaxies

Understand

The demographics of the production and escape of ionizing photons from UV-faint early galaxies is a key unknown in discovering the primary drivers of reionization.

• With the advent of JWST it is finally possible to observe the rest-frame optical nebular emission from individual sub-L$^*$ z>3 galaxies to measure the production of ionizing photons, $\xi_\mathrm{ion}$.
• Here we study a sample of 370 z~3-7 galaxies spanning -23 <M$_\mathrm{UV}$ < -15.5 (median M$_\mathrm{UV}\approx$ -18) with deep multi-band HST and JWST/NIRCam photometry covering the rest-UV to optical from the GLASS and UNCOVER JWST surveys.
• Our sample includes 102 galaxies with Lyman-alpha emission detected in MUSE spectroscopy.