Automated Search for Lyman-alpha Emitters in the DEEP 3 Galaxy Redshift Survey

This paper presents research on automatically identifying emission lines in large spectroscopic surveys. Prior work used manual inspection of spectra from the DEEP3 galaxy redshift surveys to search for Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs). However, this approach is labor-intensive. It is possible to use algorithmic methods to automatically identify such emitters. This paper describes the design and implementation of a system to find LAEs in an automated manner. The algorithm has successfully identified LAEs in the redshift range 3.0-6.6. Results are presented from running the algorithm on the entire DEEP3 database. The paper also discusses the potential for further automated spectrographic analyses of DEEP3 and other surveys.