Massive star formation in a gravitationally-lensed HII-galaxy at z=3.357
Abstract
The Lynx arc, with a redshift of 3.357, was discovered during spectroscopic follow-up of the z=0.570 cluster RX J0848+4456 from the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey. The arc is characterized by a very red R-K color and strong, narrow emission lines. Analysis of HST WFPC2 imaging and Keck optical and infrared spectroscopy shows that the arc is an galaxy magnified by a factor of ~10 by a complex cluster environment. The high intrinsic luminosity, the emission line spectrum, the absorption components seen in Lyα and C IV, and the restframe ultraviolet continuum are all consistent with a simple HII region model containing ~ 106 hot O stars. The best fit parameters for this model imply a very hot ionizing continuum (TBB ~ 80,000 K), high ionization parameter (log U ~ -1), and low nebular metallicity (Z / Z ~ 0.05). The narrowness of the emission lines requires a low mass-to-light ratio for the ionizing stars, suggestive of an extremely low metallicity stellar cluster. The apparent overabundance of silicon in the nebula could indicate enrichment by past pair instability supernov, requiring stars more massive than ~140 M.
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