Povilas Palunas
University of Texas at Austin
 

"Lyman Alpha Galaxies in the Early Universe"
 

Recent searches have found a substantial population of Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAE) at redshift 2<z<6.  The strong emission-line in these galaxies allows them to be easily identified with wide-field narrow-band imaging or integral field spectroscopy. This opens new window to study the formation and evolution of galaxies and of the early universe.  I will describe an exceptional and enigmatic population of LAE, dubbed Lyman-alpha blobs, which are 100 kpc in size and emit a prodigious line flux of ~10⁴³ erg/sec. In addition, I will present, early studies of structure in the high redshift universe, as well as a new project, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), to map 500,000 LAE between redshifts 1.8<z<3.8. HETDEX will measure the expansion history of the early universe characterize dark energy and curvature.