Lyman Continuum Emission from Galaxies at z~3.4

Abstract

We report the detection of significant Lyman continuum flux in the composite spectrum of 29 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) with redshifts <z> = 3.40+/-0.09. After correction for opacity due to intervening absorption using a new composite QSO spectrum evaluated at the same redshift, the ratio of emergent flux density at 1500 \AA in the rest frame to that in the Lyman continuum is L(1500)/L(900) = 4.6 +/- 1.0. If the relative intensity of the inferred escaping Lyman continuum radiation is typical of LBGs at z ~ 3 (the galaxies in this sample are drawn from the bluest quartile of LBG spectral energy distributions due to known selection effects), then observed LBGs produce about 5 times more H-ionizing photons per unit co-moving volume than QSOs at z ~ 3. The associated contribution to the metagalactic ionizing radiation field is J_{\nu}(912) = 1.2+/-0.3 x 10^{-21} ergs s^{-1} cm^{-2} Hz^{-1} sr^{-1} at z ~ 3, very close to most estimates of the radiation field background based on the ``proximity effect''. A preliminary analysis of the density of faint QSOs in our Lyman break galaxy survey indicates that the standard extrapolated QSO luminosity function may slightly over-predict the QSO contribution to J_{\nu}(912) at z ~ 3. We briefly discuss the implications of a galaxy-dominated UV background at high redshifts.