The puzzle of the Lya Galaxies: new results from the VLT

Abstract

Observations of high-redshift galaxies show that at early cosmic epochs the cosmic UV radiation field appears to be dominated by small galaxies with strong Ly-alpha emission. Although usually small and of relatively low luminosity, these galaxies are easily identified from their line emission. Observations with the VLT resulted in significant progress in the understanding of the nature of these distant galaxies and of their role in the early Universe