A New Technique for Finding Galaxies Leaking Lyman-continuum Radiation: [S ii]-deficiency
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The source responsible for the reionization of the universe is believed to be the population of star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 6 to 12. The biggest uncertainty concerns the fraction of Lyman-continuum photons that actually escape from the galaxies. In recent years, several relatively small samples of "leaky" galaxies have been discovered, and clues have begun to emerge as to both the indirect signposts of leakiness and of the conditions/processes that enable the escape of ionizing radiation. In this paper we present the results of a pilot program to test a new technique for finding leaky galaxies, using the weakness of the [S ii ] nebular emission lines relative to typical star-forming galaxies as evidence that the interstellar medium (ISM) is optically thin to the Lyman continuum. We use the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope to detect significant emerging flux below the Lyman edge in two out of three [S ii ]-weak star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 0.3. We show that these galaxies differ markedly in their properties from the class of leaky "Green-Pea" galaxies at similar redshifts: our sample galaxies are more massive, more metal-rich, and less extreme in terms of their stellar population and the ionization state of the ISM. Like the Green Peas, they have exceptionally high star formation rates per unit area. They also share some properties with the known leaky galaxies at z ∼ 3, but are significantly dustier. Our results validate a new method to identify local laboratories for exploring the processes that made it possible for galaxies to reionize the universe.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".