Clustering of star-forming galaxies near a radio galaxy at z = 5.2 ¹

We present HST ACS observations of the most distant radio galaxy known, TN J0924-2201 at z = 5.2. This radio galaxy has six spectroscopically confirmed Lyα-emitting companion galaxies and appears to lie within an overdense region. The radio galaxy is marginally resolved in i₇₇₅ and z ₈₅₀, showing continuum emission aligned with the radio axis, similar to what is observed for lower redshift radio galaxies. Both the half-light radius and the UV star formation rate are comparable to the typical values found for Lyman break galaxies atz 4-5. The Lyα emitters are sub-L* galaxies, with deduced star formation rates of 1-10 M⊙ yr^-1. One of the Lyα emitters is only detected in Lyα. Based on the star formation rate of ∼3 M⊙ yr^-1 calculated from Lyα, the lack of continuum emission could be explained if the galaxy is younger than ∼2 Myr and is producing its first stars. Observations in V ₆₀₆i_775z850 were used to identify additional Lyman break galaxies associated with this structure. In addition to the radio galaxy, there are 22 V₆₀₆ break (z ∼ 5) galaxies with z₈₅₀ < 26.5 (5 σ), two of which are also in the spectroscopic sample. We compare the surface density of ∼2 arcmin^-2 to that of similarly selected V₆₀₆ dropouts extracted from GOODS and the UDF parallel fields. We find evidence for an overdensity to very high confidence (>99%), based on a counts-in-cells analysis applied to the control field. The excess suggests that the V₆₀₆ break objects are associated with a forming cluster around the radio galaxy.