Rationale

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Lyman alpha emission is a prominent signpost of the most actively star forming galaxies. Which galaxies can be found by Lyman alpha emission is determined by Lyman alpha production and escape, which are both interesting and challenging to understand in detail.  Moreover, because of its strong interaction with neutral hydrogen, Lyman alpha affords a set of valuable tools for understanding the progress of cosmological reionization.

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This workshop will explore some of the open questions at the frontier of Lyman alpha galaxy research.   What tools do we use to find Lyman alpha galaxies, from the highest accessible redshifts to the local universe?  How are Lyman alpha galaxies related to other emission line selected samples?  What do we learn about Lyman alpha production and escape from nearby analogs, and what do we know about the similarities and differences between those local analogs and the high redshift samples?  What does Lyman alpha tell us about reionization today?  And finally, how can we best use new and upcoming facilities to expand our answers to all these questions?

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We anticipate two days of workshop. The format will be purely contributed talks of 15-20 minute duration, to enable a large cross section of interested people to participate. We will also have poster space for those who prefer, and to accommodate additional participation in the event that talks are oversubscribed.  We will build several short open discussion periods into the schedule.

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This meeting is hosted by the LAGER project. LAGER (Lyman Alpha Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization) is a narrowband survey for Lyman alpha galaxies at redshift 7.    The LAGER survey is a collaboration between US, Chinese, and Chilean astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera at the 4m CTIO Blanco Telescope.