# Deep Ly𝛼 imaging of radio galaxy 1138-262 at redshift 2.2

## 1. Introduction

Observations of clusters at high redshift ($`z>2`$) can directly constrain cosmological models, but searches based on colors or narrow band emission have not discovered more than a handful of presumed cluster galaxies (Le Fèvre et al. 1996; Cowie & Hu 1998). There are several indications that powerful radio galaxies at high redshift (HzRGs) are located at the centers of forming clusters. The powerful radio galaxy 1138$``$262 has extensively been studied and there is strong evidence that it is a forming brightest cluster galaxy in a (proto-)cluster (e.g. Pentericci et al. 1997). The arguments include (i) the very clumpy morphology of 1138$``$262 as observed by the HST (Pentericci et al. 1998), reminiscent of a merging system; (ii) the extremely distorted radio morphology and the detection of the largest radio rotation measures ($``$ 6200 rad m<sup>-2</sup>) in a sample of more than 70 HzRGs, indicating that 1138$``$262 is surrounded by a hot and dense magnetized medium (Carilli et al. 1997); (iii) the detection of extended X-ray emission around 1138$``$262 (Carilli et al. 1998), indicating the presence of hot cluster gas.

## 2. A cluster at redshift 2.2?

With the aim of detecting Ly$`\alpha `$ emitting cluster galaxies, the field of 1138$``$262 was observed on April 12 and 13 1999 with FORS1 on the VLT ANTU using a narrow band (65 Å) covering the redshifted Ly$`\alpha `$ (3814 Å), and the broad B band which encompasses the narrow band. The resulting Ly$`\alpha `$ image shows a huge ($``$ 160 kpc)<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2We adopt a Hubble constant of $`H_0`$=50 km s<sup>-1</sup>Mpc<sup>-1</sup> and a deceleration parameter of $`q_0`$=0.5. halo of ionized hydrogen around the galaxy, which extends even further than the radio emission.

From a combined Ly$`\alpha `$ and B band image we have extracted $``$ 1600 sources with SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996), after a careful consideration of the aperture size to be used for the photometry. Objects, that are detected in the narrow band image at a level 3$`\sigma `$ higher than expected from the broad band image, are selected as candidate Ly$`\alpha `$ emitters. Discarding 6 bright stars, we detect 34 such objects in the 3$`\times `$3 Mpc<sup>2</sup> field with a range of Ly$`\alpha `$ fluxes from 0.1-5$`\times 10^{16}`$ ergs s<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. These are obvious candidates for being companion galaxies in the cluster around 1138$``$262. Three of these candidates are shown in Fig. 1. The next step will be to measure the redshifts of the Ly$`\alpha `$ emitters and subsequently determine the spatial correlation function and the velocity dispersion, which together with the size of the cluster will give a direct estimate of the total mass.

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