The discovery of the most UV–Ly α luminous star-forming galaxy: a young, dust- and metal-poor starburst with QSO-like luminosities

Abstract

We report the discovery of BOSS-EUVLG1 at z = 2.469, by far the most luminous, almost un-obscured star-forming galaxy known at any redshift. First classified as a QSO within the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, follow-up observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias reveal that its large luminosity, M-UV similar or equal to -24.40 and log(L-Ly alpha/erg s(-1)) similar or equal to 44.0, is due to an intense burst of star formation, and not to an active galactic nucleus or gravitational lensing. BOSS-EUVLG1 is a compact (r(eff) similar or equal to 1.2 kpc), young (4-5 Myr) starburst with a stellar mass log(M-*/M-circle dot) = 10.0 +/- 0.1 and a prodigious star formation rate of similar or equal to 1000 M-circle dot yr(-1). However, it is metal- and dust-poor [12+ log(O/H) = 8.13 +/- 0.19, E(B - V) similar or equal to 0.07, log(L-IR/L-UV) < -1.2], indicating that we are witnessing the very early phase of an intense starburst that has had no time to enrich the ISM. BOSS-EUVLG1 might represent a short-lived (<100 Myr), yet important phase of star-forming galaxies at high redshift that has been missed in previous surveys. Within a galaxy evolutionary scheme, BOSS-EUVLG1 could likely represent the very initial phases in the evolution of massive quiescent galaxies, even before the dusty star-forming phase.