Accelerated Evolution of Ly$α$ Luminosity Function at $\textit{z} \gtrsim 7$ Revealed by the Subaru Ultra-Deep Survey for Ly$α$ Emitters at $\textit{z}=7.3$

Abstract: We present the ultra-deep Subaru narrowband imaging survey for Lya emitters (LAEs) at $z=7.3$ in SXDS and COSMOS fields with a total integration time of 106 hours. Exploiting our new sharp bandwidth filter, NB101, installed on Suprime-Cam, we have reached $L(Lya)=2.4\times10^{42} \ erg \ s^{-1}$ ($5\sigma$) for $z=7.3$ LAEs, about 4 times deeper than previous Subaru $z \gtrsim 7$ studies, which allows us to reliably investigate evolution of Lya luminosity function (LF), for the first time, down to the luminosity limit same as those of Subaru $z=3.1-6.6$ LAE samples. Surprisingly, we only find three and four LAEs in SXDS and COSMOS fields, respectively, while one expects a total of $\sim 65$ LAEs by our survey in the case of no Lya LF evolution from $z=6.6$ to $7.3$.We identify a decrease of Lya LF from $z=6.6$ to $7.3$ at the $>90\%$ confidence level from our $z=7.3$ Lya LF.Moreover, the evolution of Lya LF is clearly accelerated at $z>6.6$ beyond the measurement uncertainties including cosmic variance. Because no such accelerated evolution of UV-continuum LF or cosmic star-formation rate (SFR) is found at $z\sim 7$, but suggested only at $z>8$ (Oesch et al. 2013, Bouwens et al. 2014), this accelerated Lya LF evolution is explained by physical mechanisms different from a pure SFR decrease but related to Lya production and escape in the process of cosmic reionization. Because a simple accelerating increase of IGM neutral hydrogen absorbing Lya would not reconcile with Thomson scattering optical depth measurements from WMAP and Planck, our findings may support new physical pictures suggested by recent theoretical studies, such as the existence of HI clumpy clouds within cosmic ionized bubbles selectively absorbing Lya and the large ionizing photon escape fraction of galaxies making weak Lya emission.