Candidate Ly{alpha}-emitting galaxies spectra

Observations probing that epoch are severely hampered by the increasing amounts of neutral gas with increasing redshift, so a small, but growing, number of experiments are targeting star-forming galaxies (z~3) as proxies. However, these studies, while providing fantastic detail, are time intensive, contain relatively few targets, and can suffer from selection biases.

As a complementary alternative, we investigate whether stacking the already vast (and growing) numbers of low- resolution ({Delta}{lambda}/{lambda}=800) Ly{alpha}-emitting (LAE) galaxy spectra from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) can be used to measure ionizing photons (rest-frame 880-910{AA}) escaping their galaxy hosts. As a blind survey, HETDEX avoids the biases from continuum-selected galaxies, and its planned 540deg^2^ coverage promotes the statistical power of large numbers.