We present near-infrared emission line counts and luminosity functions from the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallels (WISP) program for 29 fields (0.037 deg2) observed using both the G102 and G141 grism. Altogether we identify 1048 emission line galaxies with observed equivalent widths greater than 40 Å, 467 of which have multiple detected emission lines. We use simulations to correct for significant (>20%) incompleteness introduced in part by the non-dithered, non-rotated nature of the grism parallels. The WISP survey is sensitive to fainter flux levels ((3-5) × 10-17 erg s-1 cm-2) than the future space near-infrared grism missions aimed at baryonic acoustic oscillation cosmology ((1-4) × 10-16 erg s-1 cm-2), allowing us to probe the fainter emission line galaxies that the shallower future surveys may miss. Cumulative number counts of 0.7 < z < 1.5 galaxies reach 10,000 deg-2 above an Hα flux of 2 × 10-16 erg s-1 cm-2. Hα-emitting galaxies with comparable [O III] flux are roughly five times less common than galaxies with just Hα emission at those flux levels. Galaxies with low Hα/[O III] ratios are very rare at the brighter fluxes that future near-infrared grism surveys will probe; our survey finds no galaxies with Hα/[O III] < 0.95 that have Hα flux greater than 3 × 10-16 erg s -1 cm-2. Our Hα luminosity function contains a comparable number density of faint line emitters to that found by the Near IR Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer near-infrared grism surveys, but significantly fewer (factors of 3-4 less) high-luminosity emitters. We also find that our high-redshift (z = 0.9-1.5) counts are in agreement with the high-redshift (z = 1.47) narrowband Hα survey of HiZELS (Sobral et al.), while our lower redshift luminosity function (z = 0.3-0.9) falls slightly below their z = 0.84 result. The evolution in both the Hα luminosity function from z = 0.3-1.5 and the [O III] luminosity function from z = 0.7-2.3 is almost entirely in the L parameter, which steadily increases with redshift over those ranges. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

We present the first robust measurement of the high redshift mass-metallicity (MZ) relation at 108 ≲ M/M ⊙ ≲ 1010, obtained by stacking spectra of 83 emission-line galaxies with secure redshifts between 1.3 ≲ z ≲ 2.3. For these redshifts, infrared grism spectroscopy with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 is sensitive to the R 23 metallicity diagnostic: ([O II] λλ3726, 3729 + [O III] λλ4959, 5007)/Hβ. Using spectra stacked in four mass quartiles, we find a MZ relation that declines significantly with decreasing mass, extending from 12+log(O/H) = 8.8 at M = 109.8 M ⊙, to 12+log(O/H) = 8.2 at M = 10 8.2 M ⊙. After correcting for systematic offsets between metallicity indicators, we compare our MZ relation to measurements from the stacked spectra of galaxies with M ≳ 109.5 M ⊙ and z ∼ 2.3. Within the statistical uncertainties, our MZ relation agrees with the z ∼ 2.3 result, particularly since our somewhat higher metallicities (by around 0.1 dex) are qualitatively consistent with the lower mean redshift (z = 1.76) of our sample. For the masses probed by our data, the MZ relation shows a steep slope which is suggestive of feedback from energy-driven winds, and a cosmological downsizing evolution where high mass galaxies reach the local MZ relation at earlier times. In addition, we show that our sample falls on an extrapolation of the star-forming main sequence (the SFR-M * relation) at this redshift. This result indicates that grism emission-line selected samples do not have preferentially high star formation rates (SFRs). Finally, we report no evidence for evolution of the mass-metallicity-SFR plane; our stack-averaged measurements show excellent agreement with the local relation. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

We present results from near-infrared spectroscopy of 26 emission-line galaxies at z ∼ 2.2 and z ∼ 1.5 obtained with the Folded-port InfraRed Echellette (FIRE) spectrometer on the 6.5 m Magellan Baade telescope. The sample was selected from the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallels survey, which uses the near-infrared grism of the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to detect emission-line galaxies over 0.3 ≲ z ≲ 2.3. Our FIRE follow-up spectroscopy (R ∼ 5000) over 1.0-2.5 μm permits detailed measurements of the physical properties of the z ∼ 2 emission-line galaxies. Dust-corrected star formation rates for the sample range from ∼5-100 MȮ yr-1 with a mean of 29 MȮ yr-1. We derive a median metallicity for the sample of 12 + log(O/H) = 8.34 or ∼0.45 ZȮ. The estimated stellar masses range from ∼108.5-109.5 MȮ, and a clear positive correlation between metallicity and stellar mass is observed. The average ionization parameter measured for the sample, log U ≈ -2.5, is significantly higher than what is found for most star-forming galaxies in the local universe, but similar to the values found for other star-forming galaxies at high redshift. We derive composite spectra from the FIRE sample, from which we measure typical nebular electron densities of ∼100-400 cm-3. Based on the location of the galaxies and composite spectra on diagnostic diagrams, we do not find evidence for significant active galactic nucleus activity in the sample. Most of the galaxies, as well as the composites, are offset diagram toward higher [O III]/Hβ at a given [N II]/Hα, in agreement with other observations of z ≳ 1 star-forming galaxies, but composite spectra derived from the sample do not show an appreciable offset from the local star-forming sequence on the [O III]/Hβ versus [S II]/Hα diagram. We infer a high nitrogen-to-oxygen abundance ratio from the composite spectrum, which may contribute to the offset of the high-redshift galaxies from the local star-forming sequence in the [O III]/Hβ versus [N II]/Hα diagram. We speculate that the elevated nitrogen abundance could result from substantial numbers of Wolf-Rayet stars in starbursting galaxies at z ∼ 2. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Previous detections of individual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 tera-electron volts. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known γ-ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multiwavelength campaign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to γ-rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy γ-rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a γ-ray-emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrinos.