A novel approach to find Lyman continuum leaking galaxies

by Ms Elisabet Leitet (Dep. of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Sweden)

Friday 11 May 2012, 10:30 → 11:30 Europe/Stockholm

FA31

Very few LyC emitting galaxies have been observed at low redshifts, but this does not necessarily mean that they are not there. Traditionally these galaxies have been selected based on their starburst properties derived from strong recombination lines. Although this guaranties a strong star formation episode, such a selection criterium will also work in favor of gas rich systems and against a high amount of leakage. With this in mind, we developed a method for identifying the most strongly LyC leaking galaxies in the nearby volume. The galaxies are selected from SDSS based on their blue colours and weak recombination lines, properties that combined only can be fitted by models with a very high amount of leakage. With this novel selection technique, we submitted a successful cycle 19 HST/COS proposal, and data are now being obtained for a sample z$\sim$0.35 galaxies. The selection method and a tentative sample of z~0.03 galaxies observed with ESO/NTT are presented. This sample shows that the method is indeed successful at finding galaxies with properties interesting in the light of LyC leakage.