Cc. Steidel et al., A LARGE STRUCTURE OF GALAXIES AT REDSHIFT Z-SIMILAR-TO-3 AND ITS COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS, The Astrophysical journal, 492(2), 1998, pp. 428-438
We report the discovery of a highly significant concentration of galax
ies at a redshift of [z] = 3.090. The structure is evident in a redshi
ft histogram of photometrically selected ''Lyman-break'' objects in a
9' by 18' field in which we have obtained 78 spectroscopic redshifts i
n the range 2.0 less than or equal to z less than or equal to 3.4. The
dimensions of the structure projected on the plane of the sky are at
least 11' by 8', or 14 h(70)(-1) by 10 h(70)(-1) Mpc (comoving; Omega(
M) = 1). The concentration contains 15 galaxies and one faint (R = 21.
7) QSO. We consider the structure in the context of a number of cosmol
ogical models and argue that Lyman-break galaxies must be very biased
tracers of mass, with an effective bias on mass scale M similar to 10(
15) M. ranging from b similar to 2 for Omega(M) = 0.2 to b greater tha
n or similar to 6 for Omega(M) = 1. In a cold dark matter scenario, th
e large bias values suggest that individual Lyman-break galaxies are a
ssociated with dark halos of mass hi similar to 10(12) M., reinforcing
the interpretation of these objects as the progenitors of massive gal
axies at the present epoch. Preliminary results of spectroscopy in add
itional fields suggest that such large structures are common at z simi
lar to 3, with about one similar structure per survey held. The implie
d space density is consistent with the possibility that we are observi
ng moderately rich clusters of galaxies in their early nonlinear evolu
tion. Finally, the spectrum of one of the QSOs discovered in our surve
y (z(em) = 3.356) exhibits metal-line absorption systems within the th
ree redshift bins having the largest number of galaxies in field, z =
2.93, 3.09, and 3.28. These results are the first from an ongoing ''ta
rgeted'' redshift survey designed to explore the nature and distributi
on of star-forming galaxies in the redshift range 2.7 less than or sim
ilar to z less than or similar to 3.4.