Halpha emitting galaxies and the cosmic star formation rate at z = 2.2

About 10 candidate Halpha emitting galaxies at z = 2.2 have been detected in a 2.1 um narrow band imaging survey covering an area of 100 sq. arcmin including the WFPC2 and STIS fields in the Hubble Deep Field South. Six of these have subsequently been confirmed spectroscopically using ISAAC at the ESO VLT. Star formation rates of the individual galaxies derived from their Halpha fluxes are 20-35 Msolar/yr, without any correction for extinction, whereas SFRs derived from their rest frame UV continuum fluxes are up to a factor of 4 lower

• consistent with lower extinction to Halpha. Velocity dispersions are typically ~ 100km/s and one galaxy, observed under the most favorable conditions, shows a rotation curve with a terminal velocity ~ 140 km/s at ~ 3kpc radius which is within the range observed for nearby spiral galaxies. These thus appear to be relatively massive systems at high redshift. Comparison with the HST NICMOS grism Halpha survey of Yan et al. (1999) reveals little or no evolution in the Halpha luminosity function between z ~ 1.3 and 2.2. The inferred star formation rate density of 0.12 Msolar/Mpc^3/yr at z = 2.2 is also equal to that at z ~ 3-4.5 derived by Steidel et al.(1999) from extinction corrected UV continuum fluxes.